


The Two-Faced Man

by iwearanearhatnow



Category: Jekyll & Hyde - Wildhorn, Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-05
Updated: 2015-01-08
Packaged: 2018-01-07 13:36:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 51,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1120464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iwearanearhatnow/pseuds/iwearanearhatnow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the first of a series of strange murders brings Detective Inspector Lestrade to 221B Baker Street yet again, Sherlock Holmes and John Watson set out on what may be the strangest case of their lives - seeking a mysterious murderer who calls himself Mr Hyde.</p><p>Disclaimer: I, of course, own none of Sherlock or Jekyll and Hyde.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First time writing/posting a fic, we'll see how this goes. I actually do have the whole thing written but it needs a LOT of editing so I'll be posting it in chapters, hopefully I can get them up within a reasonable amount of time. Also, it's set modern day (a la Sherlock) but on the Jekyll & Hyde side it pretty much directly follows the plot of the musical, which is set in the Victorian age, so there could be some discrepancies there, but I'm trying to get them all fixed. And when I say directly follows, I mean so directly that the little murder bits have dialogue taken from the musical. Also I'm not used to writing in third person so there could be some weird stuff there as well (random 'I' and the like). And I made a valiant attempt at making it sound British but I'm not British so I apologize if I didn't do very well.  
> ...I guess I should stop making excuses and just post the thing, huh. Enjoy, and feedback of any sort is appreciated!

_‘Well, well, well!’ The man emerged from the shadows as if he was one of them himself. ‘It warms my heart to see that romance still blossoms in the sewers of London. If it isn’t the Romeo of the cloth and the Juliet of the gutter! What a pretty pair.’_

_The bishop backed away from him instinctively, though the only threatening thing about the small man was his voice. ‘How dare you speak to me like that, sir!’ he said indignantly._

_‘How dare I, sir? How dare you, sir!’ With these words, the man took a step forward, then another, and the bishop backed up again. They were circling each other like predator and prey._

_‘Do you know who I am?’ the bishop asked, trying to keep a shred of his dignity despite the fear that this man’s demeanor had struck into his heart._

_‘Oh, I know exactly who you are!’ The tone of the man’s voice was almost cordial, but the sneer on his face was anything but. ‘You’re Basil, the fourteenth Bishop of Basingstoke. You are on the board of governors at St Jude’s Hospital.’ He stopped circling and advanced on the bishop, brandishing his cane. ‘And you, sir, are an obscene, self-indulgent, malevolent, malignant...’ He raised the cane high and brought it down on the bishop’s head with a resounding crack. ‘Hypocrite!’ he finished gleefully. ‘Hypocrite! Hypocrite! Hypocrite!’ With each repetition of the word he struck the bishop again until the man of God collapsed, unmoving, in the mud. Then with a chuckle he reached down and tore the cross from the unconscious man’s neck. Spitting on it contemptuously, he threw it down in the mud before pulling a flask from his hip. Uncapping it, he doused the bishop with its contents and produced from his coat a box of matches. He struck one, threw it on the bishop, and watched as his victim awoke, writhing and screeching in pain. His grinning face was illuminated in the firelight for a moment, more fiendish than the Devil himself, and then he turned and strode away._

 

 

* * * * *

 

'Sherlock Holmes, I swear to God, if you put one more hole in this wall -' John stormed into the living room to see his flatmate lounging in his armchair, feet over the side. Sherlock looked like he’d just rolled out of bed and had been too lazy to get properly dressed - trousers, an unbuttoned white shirt, unruly dark hair. At least he was actually wearing clothes this time.

He lifted his right hand. It was cradling the small black pistol he kept ‘just in case,’ and three new holes had been added to the familiar pattern already shot through the wallpaper in previous fits of boredom. Lazily, he rolled his head  to look levelly at John. 'You’ll do what?' he asked in his deep voice. 'Divorce me?'

‘You might have missed the memo, but we’re not actually married.’  Sherlock lifted the pistol again and  fired another shot through the wall without even looking. All the while he kept his eyes fixed on John, daring John to try and stop him.

John crossed the room in three long strides and plucked the pistol from his hand. He didn’t resist. 'What the Hell is the matter with you, Sherlock?'

'I’m bored. And you took my cigarettes.' He was drumming his long fingers on the chair, not looking at John. John had meant the question in more of a general sense - he’d already known his flatmate was bored and drugless and was much more curious to find out why he shot holes in the wall when he was bored. But he let it go.

'That’s no excuse for you to shoot up the flat. I’ve told you that before. Play your violin if you’re bored, or...mix some chemicals or something, but for God’s sake don’t destroy things!'

By way of answer, his hand shot out and took back the pistol before John could react. Irritated, he lunged forward to try and take it back, tripped over one of the many random objects laying around the flat (most of them Sherlock’s) and toppled half-over the chair, hand still outstretched for the pistol.

At that moment the door opened. Both men’s heads snapped up simultaneously to see Lestrade, with Mrs Hudson peeking around behind him. Lestrade looked shocked at first, then cleared his throat, smoothed his face into an amused expression, and asked dryly, 'I’m sorry, did I come at a bad time?'

John realized belatedly that one of his hands had landed on Sherlock’s bare chest and the other was twined with his around the pistol. Hastily they disentangled themselves. Sherlock sat up straight in the chair and buttoned his shirt, and John took the advantage of the occupation of both of his hands to snatch up the pistol and pocket it.

'Not at all,' Sherlock said coolly. 'Which case do you need help with this time, Lestrade? The jewelry store robbery, perhaps? Or is it the runaway maid? I’ve solved them both.'

Lestrade gave him a look of intense dislike, and even John wanted to smack him a bit for showing off. 'No, this is one that hasn’t made it to press yet.'

'Tell me,' Sherlock demanded. 'And for God’s sake, make it interesting.'

'Sit down,' John added apologetically, trying to make up for Sherlock’s appalling lack of host abilities.

Lestrade sat. 'A bishop,' he said, 'was killed last night in a London slum.' He paused, waiting to see if Sherlock was interested.

'And that’s all you know, isn’t it.'

For a moment John was genuinely worried that Lestrade was going to try to strangle Sherlock. He didn’t blame him - Sherlock was difficult even on the best of days, and practically impossible when he was bored. Which was often. But Lestrade just let out a tired sigh and continued. 'His Grace Rupert Basil the 14th Bishop of Basingstoke died last night at around twelve thirty AM. Witnesses saw him walking through a...shady part of town with a young woman, presumably his daughter, around midnight. When he was found, at about twelve forty five, the woman was gone and the bishop had been beaten to death with a blunt object before being lit on fire.'

'Naturally, you’ve assumed the woman is the killer.' Sherlock still sounded bored out of his mind, but John recognized the glint in his eye that meant something about the case interested him.

'We have considered the possibility,' Lestrade admitted.

'It sounds to me like a simple murder case. Why did you come to me?' John shot him a warning look. He knew full well why Lestrade had come; he just liked to see him squirm.

Lestrade looked slightly homicidal, but in a tight voice he said, 'Because we’re stumped.'

Sherlock shrugged. 'Find the woman,' he suggested. 'That’s a good start.'

Lestrade’s face fell. 'Does that mean you won’t help us?'

'It means that I am going to check out the scene of the crime while you look for her. I do the deductions, you do the dirty work.' Lestrade didn’t look completely satisfied with that answer. 'Have you already moved the body, or were you kind enough to leave it alone for me?'

Lestrade shot Sherlock a sharp look. 'Of course we’ve left it alone. Contrary to popular belief, we do know how to handle a murder case.'  
'Could have fooled me.'

'Sherlock,' John said sharply.

'I thought you were trying to hide this from the press,' Sherlock continued, ignoring John’s reprimand.

'They’re going to find out eventually. We’re just hoping to keep it away from them until we make some headway on it.'

'Fantastic. Where’s the body?'

'In an alley off of Bayham Street, in Camden Town.'

John raised his eyebrow. 'You weren’t kidding when you said a London slum, were you.'

'No, I wasn’t.' Lestrade’s voice was grim. He stood. 'Good luck, gentlemen.'

'You too,' John returned, knowing Sherlock wouldn’t wish him luck. Lestrade nodded and left the flat.

John turned to Sherlock, waiting for him to say something. He was sitting cross-legged in his armchair, his fingers pressed to his lips the way he did when he was thinking. 'Sherlock?' he asked, hesitant to interrupt him. In one fluid movement he jumped up from the chair and donned his coat.

'Well, are you coming?' he asked expectantly, hand on the doorknob.

John grabbed his jacket from where it was draped over the back of another chair and put it on. 'Yes, but...Sherlock...'

'What.' He was watching John with irritated impatience. John looked pointedly at his feet. His bare feet.

'You’re not wearing shoes.'

He glanced down. 'Shoes are for lesser men.'

'Shoes are for men who like not stepping on broken glass in the slums. Put them on, Sherlock.'

'I’m not worried about broken glass. I have a resident doctor.' But he put on his shoes. Then, without looking back to see if John was following - he knew he would be - he exited the flat.

John caught up with him on the sidewalk outside 221B. He had his hand raised, hailing a cab. One pulled up, and they got in. 'Bayham Street,' Sherlock ordered the cabbie.

'Please,' John added. The cabbie looked at the two well-dressed men like he wanted to ask them what business they had there, but it wasn’t his job to ask questions. It was his job to drive, and he did a fine job of it.

'So...if this is just a straightforward murder case like you said, why are we going?' John asked Sherlock.

'Because the Bishop of Basingstoke was Catholic.'

John blinked at him. 'Sorry, what?'

'Before he became a Church of England bishop. He was raised Catholic and ordained as a Catholic priest at the age of twenty two. He converted to Anglicanism at the age of fifty after the sudden deaths of both of his parents and became a bishop at the age of fifty eight. He was sixty three when he died.'

'How do you - never mind. What does that have to do with the case?'

'Catholic priests can’t marry.'

'He isn’t Catholic.'

'No, but he was for fifty years. Do the math, John.'

He did, and realized what Sherlock was talking about. 'Even if he’d married and had a daughter the year he converted, she’d only be thirteen. And Lestrade described the woman he was with as a young woman.'

'Clearly older than thirteen, yes.'

'So who was the woman he was with last night?'

'He was in the slums, at midnight, with a young woman. Who do you think she was?' There was a hint of amusement in Sherlock’s voice. Just a hint.

John’s eyes widened in shock. 'But...he’s a bishop!'

‘Bishops are no different than other men just because they take a vow of celibacy. Well, the Catholic ones do, anyway.’

‘Yes, but...a prostitute?’

‘Does it shock you that much?’

It didn’t really; John had heard much stranger things. ‘So we’re on this case because the woman couldn’t have been his daughter?’

‘No.’

‘Why, then?’

‘We are on this case because I’m bored stiff, and I thought you would prefer this to me putting holes in our wall. I was interested in the case because the woman couldn’t have been his daughter. It’s worth taking a brief look at, at the very least. It could prove to be less straightforward than it seems.’

John hoped so. The less straightforward the case, the longer it would be till Sherlock was bored again.

The cab stopped. The cabbie turned around, pushed open the sliding glass door between the front and back seats, and held out his hand. ‘Seven pounds.’ Eyeing him warily - he still hadn’t quite forgotten a previous encounter with a certain cabbie - John pulled his wallet out of his pocket and handed him a ten.

Sherlock was halfway down the street by the time John got out of the cab and caught up to him. ‘Next time, you’re paying.’

‘You said that last time.’ He was keeping up a brisk pace, as he tended to do when he was on a case. Not for the first time, John regretted being so much shorter than him.

Shouts from up ahead of them made John snap my head up and look around. Sherlock, on the other hand, didn’t even seem to notice.  They were on a narrow, dirty street. Tall stone buildings pressed in on them from both sides, looking like they’d been due for a good washing about ten years ago. It didn’t take John long to locate the source of the shouts - a few children jumping rope. They, like everything else here, were dirty and full of holes, with coats that were too big and boots that were too small. In the light of day, everything just looked sort of dreary and grey, but in the dark it probably wasn’t the sort of place you wanted to walk through alone. Not if you valued your life. Which apparently, the Bishop of Basingstoke hadn’t.

‘Lestrade said the body was in an alley,’ John said, glancing around while trying to avoid making eye contact with any of the children; not an easy task by any means. Silently, Sherlock pointed to a police car parked down the street. ‘Oh.’

They reached the police car quickly. An familiar officer was standing beside it. ‘Hello, gentlemen,’ he said, not even bothering to disguise the contempt in his voice.

‘Hello, Anderson,’ John replied.

‘Do us all a favour and stay here while I examine the body,’ Sherlock told Anderson as he pushed past him down the alleyway. ‘It wouldn’t do to have your stupidity distracting me. You know what they say about one bad apple.’

Anderson looked like he wanted to punch Sherlock in the face. John sympathised. Having punched Sherlock in the face before, he knew just how satisfying it could be. So even though he didn’t particularly like Anderson either, he shot him an apologetic look - he seemed to be apologising for Sherlock more than usual this morning - and followed his flatmate under the police tape and into the alley.

Whoever had killed the Bishop of Basingstoke must really have hated him. His broken body was crumpled in the far corner of the alley, surrounded by a puddle of blood that had mixed in with the mud on the street, creating a nasty brownish-red paste. His body was charred from being set alight, but not too badly - he had probably been discovered because of the flames and then put out. He’d been beaten before being burned, mostly on his head, though the rest of his body hadn’t escaped punishment. There was no sign of a murder weapon.

Sherlock got straight to work, circling the body, examining every last little detail. He poked around in his clothing, dug in the mud near him, even sniffed the body. John left him to it, knowing that he could do a much better job of it than he, even as a doctor, could ever hope to do. The most he could do was determine the cause and time of death, and that wasn’t exactly a mystery in this case.

“We are looking for a short, strong, and well-built gentleman,” Sherlock said finally, turning back to his companion.

‘How do you figure?’

‘The footsteps in the mud are small but deep, suggesting that the man is small but not light. Additionally the bishop was struck repeatedly on the sides of his head and from the front, but only once from the top, hence a short man. He had to be strong to cause this much damage to his victim despite his size. The injuries appear to have been inflicted with a small but thick metal object and the footsteps were made by an expensive pair of shoes, which means the man is rich and likely carries a cane, topped with a metal ball - our murder weapon.’

‘That shouldn’t be too hard, not many people carry canes anymore.’

‘More than you’d think. Fortunately we know that this man found out about the bishop’s less tasteful pursuits, which means our killer has been here before, seen the bishop with the girl, and figured out what was really going on between the two.’

‘So a gentlemen who frequents the slums.’

‘Yes. A bit of a hypocrite himself, don’t you think?’

‘All men are hypocrites.’

‘How profound.’

‘Thanks. So what’s next?’

‘Next is finding out whether Lestrade has discovered what we have about the bishop’s “daughter.”’

Understanding dawned on John, as it had a habit of belatedly doing while he was on a case with Sherlock. ‘You knew the entire time, didn’t you. From the moment he mentioned the bishop’s daughter you knew she was a prostitute.’

‘Excellent deduction.’ John couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not.

‘Then why did you tell Lestrade to search for the woman?’

‘He likes to feel needed.’

‘Does he now.’

‘Yes. He does. Text him, would you?’

‘You have a phone, do it yourself.’

‘I’m thinking.’

‘I’m sure you are.’ But John pulled his phone out of his pocket anyway. ‘What do you want me to say?’

‘Just ask what he’s found out about the woman.’

John complied.

Did you find out anything about the woman? -JW

‘Sent. Now what?’

‘Now we wait.’

**She isn’t the bishop’s daughter, that much is for sure. -DI Lestrade**

John showed Sherlock the text. He nodded. ‘I should hope he’s figured that much out.’

What is she, then? -JW

**A prostitute, apparently. -DI Lestrade**

Oh my. Have you actually found her? -JW

‘He figured out the prostitute thing.’

‘Good for him. Has he actually found her?’

John almost laughed at how close Sherlock’s wording was to his. ‘I don’t know, I’m waiting for him to respond.’

**Not yet. The best we can figure she works at one of the places in Old Nichol. -DI Lestrade**

‘He thinks she works near here.’

‘I could have told him that,’ Sherlock said impatiently. John refrained from pointing out that yes, actually, he could have and saved them all a little time.

‘So what do you want to do, then?’

‘We will engage in the activities which are customary around here.’

‘Which means...?’

He gave a brief smile. ‘It means we’re going whore hunting.’

 

 

*****

 

Three hours passed without Sherlock and John finding their prostitute. When John had first moved in with Sherlock Holmes, he’d never imagined it would lead to him running around the London slums searching for prostitutes. But that was life with Sherlock - everything you’d never imagined.

They must have stopped in every single questionable establishment in the slum - pubs, brothels, shady drug dealers...anywhere a bishop could go if he wanted a taste of the darker side of life. But mostly brothels. John had never been in a single brothel in his entire life and by the end of those three hours he never wanted to go in another one ever again. Ever. There were some things that couldn’t be unseen, even for a man who thought he’d seen it all in Afghanistan. He hadn’t. Oh no, not by any means.

‘Please let’s not go in another one,’ he begged Sherlock as they emerged from the darkened interior of yet another brothel into the light of day. Well, sort of the light of day; it was getting on toward five or six o’clock.

‘Feeling a bit thorny, are you, John?’ Sherlock had a mischievous glint in his eye. He, unlike John, wasn’t the least bit bothered by the abundance of prostitutes.

John resisted a slight urge to slap Sherlock across the face and instead replied, ‘If by thorny you mean incredibly uncomfortable, then yes, I am, good job noticing.’

‘This is the last one, I promise.’

‘You said that an hour ago.’

‘Did I?’

‘Yes. You did.’

‘How odd.’ And with that, he pushed open the door to yet another shady establishment.

This one appeared to be a pub, though not the type either of them was usually a patron of. A wooden sign over the door announced in cracking paint that it was called the Red Rat. The interior was darkened and smoky, the only light coming from candles on the bar. Men sat at the rickety wooden tables downing beer from dingy mugs and watching the women onstage. They were dancing. Provocatively. So much for it being a pub, then.

‘Sherlock,” John said uncomfortably. “Can we hurry up in here?’

‘Why?’ Sherlock asked, half-tauntingly. ‘Too many women?’

‘Too many scantily-dressed women.’

‘I would have thought you would be used to that after our encounters with Ms Adler.’

‘Look, can we just do what we need to and get out?’

‘We will spend as much time in here as we need to find our woman.’

John groaned. He was beginning to think Sherlock got a kick out of seeing him uncomfortable.

The women onstage finished their number. The men applauded, and John suspected they’d see some of them leaving with some of the women later on tonight. If they hung around that long.  He would have prayed they didn’t, but he had a feeling God didn’t answer prayers where Sherlock Holmes was concerned.

Sherlock approached one of the girls. ‘Excuse me,’ he said.

She turned. ‘Hello, handsome.’

‘I am not interested in your services. I need answers, and I’m hoping you can give them to me.’  Talk about a flat-out rejection.

‘Answers? To what questions?’

‘Have you ever had any...unusual customers in here?’

‘We get all sorts in here. Old men, young men, poor men, rich men...’

‘All sorts. Well, then, I suppose you could have had a bishop?’

The girl’s eyes widened. ‘This is about that bishop, the one what died last night, isn’t it! I swear Annie didn’t kill ‘im!’

A hint of a smile played about Sherlock’s lips. ‘Don’t worry, I don’t think Annie did it. She might know who did, though. Where is she?’

The girl pointed toward the stage. ‘Back there somewhere, I guess.’

Sherlock pushed past her and headed in that direction. ‘Thank you,’ John told her as he followed him.

There were a lot of girls backstage, maybe fifteen or twenty. And they were all dressed a lot like the girl they’d just been talking to - in other words, hardly dressed at all. ‘Excuse me,’ Sherlock said. ‘Which one of you is Annie?’

The girls, who had been chatting, immediately fell silent. Finally one of them stepped forward, a small girl with pretty blonde curls and blue eyes. It wasn’t hard to see why the bishop would have chosen her. ‘That’s me.’

‘May we speak to you for a moment?’ She looked nervous but nodded and took a hesitant step toward Sherlock and John. Sherlock led her away from the group of  suddenly nervous girls, and John tagged along, feeling inexplicably like a third wheel. ‘You were seen last night with the Bishop of Basingstoke,’ Sherlock said when they were a good distance out of anyone’s earshot. ‘He was found dead not long afterwards.’

Poor Annie was trembling. ‘I didn’t kill him, I swear!’

‘Don’t worry,’ John said soothingly, ‘we don’t think you did.’ He shot Sherlock a glare, trying to warn him to be nice to her. It was probably a lost cause, but it was worth a shot at least.

‘We don’t,’ Sherlock confirmed, ‘but there are others who do.’

Yeah. Lost cause.

‘Look,’ John said, ‘we just have a couple of questions for you, okay?’ He felt like he was talking down to her just a little bit, but she couldn’t have been a day older than sixteen. H3 wondered how she’d ended up as a prostitute.

Annie nodded. ‘Okay.’

‘Last night at approximately twelve thirty, you were with the Bishop of Basingstoke, yes?’  

‘I was with a customer. I dunno who he was, do I?’ Annie answered petulantly.

'Annie,' said Sherlock in a scarily serious voice, 'as I said, there are people out there who think you killed this man. If you do not want to be arrested or possibly killed, I suggest you tell us everything you know.'

Annie looked frightened out of her wits, and John didn't blame her. Instinctively he put a hand on her shoulder to reassure her. 'He was just a customer,' she said in a shaky voice. 'Yeah, he was a bishop, but it doesn't matter to us what our customers are as long as they pay. I did my job, he paid me and walked away. I didn't see anything suspicious. Actually I didn't see anything. Or hear anything, before you ask. I didn't kill him and I don't know who did so would you please leave me alone!' Her voice had risen about an octave and several decibels while she was talking.

Sherlock looked crestfallen, like a kid who had been expecting a puppy for Christmas and instead had gotten an ugly sweater knitted by his aunt. ‘I’m sorry we bothered you, Annie,’ John said, before Sherlock could say anything even bordering on nasty. ‘We’ll leave you now. Thank you for talking to us.’ He grabbed Sherlock’s arm and dragged him off, past the bar and the corseted girl who winked at him and out into the warm evening.

‘There,’ John said, slightly breathlessly. ‘We found what we were looking for. Can we please go home now?’

Sherlock was silent for a moment, staring off into the distance, no doubt thinking hard. ‘No,’ he said finally, and then, before John could protest, added, ‘first we’re going to get some dinner.’

John couldn’t disagree with that. They had been so busy tracking down their prostitute that they had completely forgotten to eat - or, more accurately, Sherlock had. John had been painfully aware all day that the last thing he’d had to eat was his usual morning toast and coffee, but he knew better than to ask Sherlock if they could stop for lunch while they were on a case. John was just glad he had at last remembered that he was, in fact, human and thus had to eat.

They hailed a cab and Sherlock instructed the cabbie to drop them off at his favourite Chinese restaurant. He was silent the entire cab ride, resting his chin on his hand and staring distractedly out the window. John wanted to ask him what he thought of the case so far but was smarter than to interrupt him when he was thinking or deducing. So he stared out the other window instead, letting his mind wander from the day’s events and on to what he was going to have for dinner. Broccoli beef sounded particularly appetising at this point, and dumplings of course were a must...

‘Text Lestrade for me,’ Sherlock said abruptly, breaking into his musings about food. ‘Use my phone this time. Left coat pocket.’

John rolled my eyes but reached into his pocket and pulled out the phone. ‘What do you want me to say?’

‘Just tell him what happened.’

_Found the prostitute. She knows nothing. SH_

**Too bad. Any other leads? -DI Lestrade**

John paused, thumbs poised above the keypad. ‘He wants to know if you have any other leads.’

‘Three,’ he replied without looking at John.

‘And what would those be?’

‘I’ll let you know when it’s time to follow them.’

_Three. SH_

**Mind telling me what they are? -DI Lestrade**

_Later. SH_

Lestrade didn’t respond to that, and John could practically feel his irritation even without the other man there.

The cab stopped at the curb in front of the Chinese restaurant. John paid the cabbie despite his insistence that Sherlock pay the next time, and stepped out with Sherlock close behind him. The neon lights and paper lanterns were a welcome change from the smoky lighting in the Red Rat, not to mention there were considerably fewer prostitutes here. They entered the restaurant and sat down at their usual table. Sherlock was a regular here, and John accompanied him often enough that all the waitresses knew them. Granted, most of them were convinced that the two of them were a couple no matter how many times John told them they weren’t, but they were pretty Asian girls and it was hard to stay annoyed with them.

‘Annie the prostitute didn’t kill the bishop,’ Sherlock said as he took the seat across from John. The waitress, who had just walked up to the table, gave him a strange look but said nothing. ‘The duck and an order of dumplings,’ Sherlock added, handing the menu to the waitress without even looking at her, then picked right back up where he’d left off. ‘She didn’t even see the murderer. We need to look somewhere else.’

‘I’ll have broccoli beef and egg rolls, please,’ John told the waitress as he handed her his menu as well. Her name tag said Mei. John smiled as apologetically as he could at her to make up for Sherlock’s rude behaviour, and she smiled back shyly before walking away. When he turned back to the table, Sherlock was smiling smugly at him. ‘What?’

‘She’s pretty, John.’ He said it teasingly, as if he knew John noticed it. Which, of course, he did. And John had.

‘Shut up. What were you saying about the murderer?’

There was only one surefire way to stop Sherlock once he’d started making fun of John and his love life, and that was to get him deducing. It had yet to fail him, and this time was no exception. ‘It wasn’t the prostitute. Obviously. I was hoping she would know something, but no matter, I still have my deductions to go on.’

‘Yeah, what did you say he was? A short gentleman with a cane?’

‘Exactly.’

‘What’s the plan, then? Find a rich neighbourhood and start knocking on doors? “Hello, we’re with the police, did you kill the Bishop of Basingstoke?” Because that will work well.’

‘Of course not. Do I look like an idiot?’

‘Sometimes,’ John muttered, and hoped he hadn’t heard that. ‘What is the plan, then?’

‘The plan is to go talk to some of the parishioners at the bishop’s church and see what they know.’

It was as good a place to start as any. John was beginning to get the sinking feeling that this was going to be a very long and very frustrating case.


	2. Chapter 2

‘John!’

John rolled over groggily in bed, wishing he’d remembered to close the door to his bedroom before falling asleep the previous night. They had gotten back from the Chinese restaurant late and, exhausted from his experiences in the London slums, John had gone straight to bed.

‘John, get up, we’re going out!’

‘Shut up, Sherlock,’ he grumbled, not quite loud enough for Sherlock to hear, and rolled out of bed. The clock on the nightstand read 9:24, which meant he had no legitimate excuse for being asleep much longer. Silently cursing his early rising flatmate, he threw on a pair of khakis, a light blue shirt, and the first jumper he laid hands on and went out into the living room.

Sherlock was standing in front of the door, buttoning his coat and glancing at John’s bedroom impatiently. ‘There you are. Put on your coat, we’re going to church.’

John tugged on my jacket and rubbed sleep out of his eyes. ‘Did you suddenly realise the error of your ways and decide to go make things up with God, or is this about the murder?’

‘Of course it’s about the murder.’  He tied his deep blue scarf around his neck with a quick, practised motion.

‘Do I get to eat breakfast first?’

‘Work before pleasure, John.’ John opened his mouth to insist that food was more of a necessity than a pleasure, but Sherlock was already breezing past him out the door. He hurried after him, still trying to put on his coat as he did so. Sherlock was at the curb waiting impatiently for a cab, his fingers tapping together absently. When one stopped, he climbed in quickly and gave the cabbie an address almost before John managed to get in the car.

‘So where exactly are we going?’ John asked, trying to shake off the last vestiges of sleep as they drove.

‘Winchester Cathedral. Well, first to Charing Cross Station, and then a train to Winchester Cathedral.’

‘And once we get there, we’re just going to ask every single person in the parish if they killed the bishop?’

‘Of course not, that would take forever and we would never get anywhere. We’re looking for people with a specific motive. Tell me, John, when we were inspecting the bishop’s body, did you happen to notice anything strange about it?’

‘Aside from the fact that it had been lit on fire? Not really, no.’

‘Doused in alcohol and then lit on fire,’ Sherlock corrected. ‘Surely even you noticed the distinctive smell.’ John didn’t reply. He had not, in fact, noticed the “distinctive smell.” ‘No, what was strange about it was the fact that he did not have a cross around his neck.’

‘Maybe he took it off to shower and then forgot to put it back on,’ John suggested, knowing full well as he did that it was a ridiculous suggestion.

Sherlock cast him a disapproving look. ‘I highly doubt that. Bishops are notable for the large, ornate crosses they wear. Judging by this bishop’s nature, his would have been especially large and especially ornate, and he wouldn’t have been caught dead without it.’ Sherlock’s mouth quirked into a smile at his pun. ‘And yet, the cross was not around his neck when we found him. It was made of gold, so it would have survived the fire, and there would have been some mark on his clothes or skin from where it was when he burned. But there wasn’t, which means it was removed before the murderer set him on fire. Why?’

‘Maybe they stole it? You could get a tidy sum for something like that on the black market.’

‘It wasn’t stolen. I found it in the mud nearby with the chain forcibly broken.’

‘Maybe he was trying to steal it and somebody saw him before he could get away with it, so he dropped it.’

‘No. He tore the cross from the bishop’s neck before setting him on fire; if someone had seen him, why would he stop to set the body alight before running off? He wouldn’t. Most murderers’ first instinct is not to get caught. Of course there are always the few that want to get caught in order to make a point, but if our murderer was that sort, then whoever had seen him would have caught him and turned him in and we’d have him already. Which means he wasn’t seen. And if he wasn’t seen, why did he tear the cross off the bishop’s neck and throw it in the mud?’

‘Maybe it wasn’t him that threw it in the mud. Maybe someone else came across the body later and decided to steal the cross.’

‘I already told you, it was taken before he was burned.’ Sherlock’s voice was taking on an irritated tone now and, not for the first time, John cursed the huge intelligence gap between the two of them.

‘So, you’re telling me whoever killed the bishop beat him with his cane, tore his cross off and threw it on the ground, and then lit him on fire.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Then why did he take the cross in the first place if he didn’t want to steal it?’

‘And we’re back to the question I asked you ten minutes ago.’

John wanted to smack him. He didn’t. His time in the army had taught him a lot about self-control, and he needed every ounce of it to deal with Sherlock before he’d had breakfast. ‘You know, you could have just answered it in the first place and saved us ten minutes.’

‘It’s more fun this way.’

John could think of a lot of things that would have been “fun” at that particular moment. Getting shown up by Sherlock was not on that list. ‘Just answer the bloody question.’

‘The most likely theory is that he didn’t feel the bishop was worthy of wearing the cross, so he took it. However, he didn’t exactly respect the cross either, which means our culprit is by no means a devout Christian, although we knew that from the fact that he visited the slums.’

‘If he’s not a devout Christian, why are we looking for him at a church?’

‘There are killers who preach, you know, and in any case, he’s a hypocrite. A gentleman who has a penchant for whore houses, a church-goer who throws crosses in the mud.’ John had to admit the logic made sense. ‘You would be surprised how few “devout Christians” actually practise what they preach, John.’

‘Yeah. Well.’ A thought occurred to John; a rather clever one, too, if he did say so himself. ‘But if our murderer isn’t a devout Christian himself, why would he kill the bishop for being a hypocrite?’

‘Who says he killed the bishop for being a hypocrite? There are several possible motives.’ And with that oh-so-enlightening remark, he lapsed into silence.

The cab stopped at Charing Cross Station and they got off. John made Sherlock pay the cabbie this time while he went and bought two tickets for the next train to Winchester. It set him back almost a hundred pounds, and he made a mental note to make Sherlock buy the groceries for the next three months at least. It was another forty-five minutes or so until their train left, so at John’s insistence they stopped for coffee and muffins in the little train station cafe before boarding the train.

The journey to Winchester took a good hour, and Sherlock spent the entire time staring out the window, thinking about the case. Random murders like this were both incredibly tricky and incredibly thrilling; there were so many possible solutions. At first John tried to relax and watch the scenery, but unlike his companion, he didn’t have the ability to stare at a fixed point for hours on end and just think, so after a while he gave up and started playing solitaire on his phone. The time passed quickly after that, and soon enough they were pulling into the station at Winchester. Sherlock roused himself from his  reverie quite abruptly and briskly disembarked, leaving John practically having to run to keep up with him. Again.

A colourful umbrella atop a newsstand caught John’s eye as they were leaving the station, and he stopped to look at the morning’s headline, which was printed in huge bold letters. ‘Sherlock, look at this,’ he said, picking one of the papers up and brandishing it. Sherlock stopped, and John read the headline aloud. ‘“Bishop of Basingstoke killed in London slum, culprit still at large.” It made it to the papers.’

‘I had no doubt it would,’ he replied. ‘What does the article say?’

John skimmed the article, reading aloud as he went. ‘“Rupert Basil, the fourteenth Bishop of Basingstoke, was found brutally murdered in Camden Town last night. He was seen with a young woman, who is presumed to be his daughter, a moment prior to his death. The identity of the murderer is unknown, but Scotland Yard assures us that he will be apprehended soon. “We have our best men on the case,” said Detective Inspector Lestrade--” He didn’t mention you again.’

‘We are his best men,’ Sherlock pointed out dryly. ‘Finish the article.’

John skipped over the details about the case that they already knew - he couldn’t help but notice they’d left out the bits about the body being lit on fire, the missing cross, and the prostitute. It wouldn’t do, he supposed, to paint the beloved Bishop of Basingstoke in a less-than-favourable light. Better to have him appear a martyr than expose the truth. ‘There’s going to be a funeral at St Paul’s on the 22nd.’ John checked the date. ‘That’s the day after tomorrow.’

‘Perhaps we’ll go,’ Sherlock said. John shot him a sidelong glance, confused, but he just turned and strode off. John hastily replaced the paper and hurried after him, avoiding the sour look the newsstand man was giving them for not buying the paper.

They took a cab to Winchester Cathedral. John was beginning to grow tired of cabs, as he tended to do when they were on a case. One can only spend so many hours staring at a sliding glass door - in fact, when they didn’t have a case, John often walked to get where he needed to go. Sherlock, who didn’t mind cabs nearly as much, was silent the entire ride, tapping his long, slender fingers on his knees in what appeared to be an absent rhythm but was in reality the second movement of a Mendelssohn violin concert. He never got to finish tapping out the piece, though, because it took less than ten minutes to reach the cathedral.

It was a huge, imposing Gothic building made of light-coloured stone with spires reaching up into the perpetually grey September sky as if they were trying to pierce through it and continue straight on up to the heavens the worshippers inside addressed their pleas to. It was arresting, with the sort of air about it that made one want to stare at it and contemplate one’s mortality and general insignificance in the grand scheme of the universe - but Sherlock was already halfway to the door when John managed to snap his gaping mouth shut and look at him, coattails playing behind him in the crisp autumn breeze, so he cast a last reluctant glance at the facade of the cathedral and caught up with Sherlock.

They reached the massive wooden doors. John wondered if maybe we should knock - it was about eleven thirty on a Saturday morning, which meant there was a good chance there might be a service going on - but Sherlock just pushed one of them open. It swung in with a loud, prolonged creak, causing John to flinch. Fortunately, though, the church was mostly empty. John looked around quizzically, wondering why. In a cathedral like this there were bound to be quite a few tourists or parishioners praying. Then Sherlock nudged his shoulder and pointed to a sign on the wall detailing the service schedule for the cathedral. That morning’s mass had gotten out about fifteen minutes earlier and there were no confessions going on, which meant most parishioners had left and no tourists had had time to get here, making the five or ten people scattered about a perfectly logical number. Most of them were kneeling with rosaries twisted between their fingers, with the exception of a young woman who was lighting a candle and looking somewhat upset. John had the urge to go ask what was wrong, but Sherlock was walking in the opposite direction. With a sigh John followed, feeling somewhat like a dog on its master’s heels.

Sherlock was heading for the sacristy, which made sense - there was a good chance that whoever had said mass this morning would be there. Sherlock barged right in the doorway, and John followed, considerably more uncomfortably. There was something fundamentally awkward about walking into a priest’s private dressing room, even though they wore clothes under their robes. At least it wasn’t a brothel, though.

‘Hello?’ Sherlock said loudly. John resisted the urge to shush him; they weren’t technically in the church. They were both looking around for the priest or bishop who’d said mass, but neither of them were finding him. John did, however, manage to find a rack full of different coloured vestments - deep purple, green, red, white, each with a different design embroidered on it. He was sure they had some significance; everything did in the church, though he’d never quite managed to master what exactly it all was.

There were footsteps, loud on the stone floor, and then a man appeared from around the rack of vestments. He was young, with bright blue eyes in an unlined face and sandy brown hair cropped short, and he was dressed in typical priestly garb, otherwise known as black dress pants and shirt with the trademark white collar. His expression was confused and, John thought, a little strained, as if he were under some serious stress that he wasn’t used to. It didn’t take a master of deduction to figure out why that was, though; after all, one of his superiors had just been brutally murdered. The congregation was bound to have had some questions about _that_. ‘Can I help you?’ he asked, and his voice sounded weary. John noticed purplish streaks under his eyes and felt a sudden surge of sympathy for him.

Sherlock felt no such thing. ‘We’re here about the Bishop of Basingstoke,’ he said without preamble.

The priest’s face fell and he let out a heavy sigh. ‘Let me guess. You’re with the police.’

‘Yes and no,’ Sherlock answered. ‘I am Sherlock Holmes, and this is my companion Dr John Watson. We have some questions for you.’

More like _he_ had some questions, and John was just there for moral support or something. Not that Sherlock would ever admit that he needed moral support. ‘You’d better sit down, then,’ the priest replied, taking his own advice and sitting down in the nearest chair. Sherlock and John followed suit.

‘What’s your name?’ John asked before Sherlock could open his mouth.

‘Reverend Samuel Evans,’ the priest replied. ‘You can call me Samuel.’

Sherlock leaned back in his chair and pressed his hands together. ‘Samuel,’ he said, ‘how long have you been a priest here?’

‘I was ordained here ten years ago, then spent seven years at Hyde with Ibsley in Christchurch before being transferred to Bishopstoke in Eastleigh. I was there for two years; I’ve only been here at the cathedral for about six months,’ Samuel replied.

‘Did you know the Bishop of Basingstoke?’ Sherlock had fixed the priest with a piercing stare. Samuel, to his credit, maintained eye contact.

‘He was a colleague, so I met him a few times, yes. I wouldn’t say I was close to him, though.’

‘What was your opinion of him?’

Samuel thought for a moment before answering. ‘He was a jovial man, if I remember, not very serious about his profession. He gave a good sermon, though.’

‘That is a description; I asked for an opinion.’

Samuel was beginning to look a little annoyed, and John didn’t blame him. Sherlock was interrogating him as if he was a suspect. Well, maybe he was. If a bishop could frequent a brothel, why couldn’t a priest kill a bishop? As soon as he had the thought, he dismissed it. Not only did Father Samuel not quite seem to fit the hypocrite description, he also didn’t fit the physical description Sherlock had decided on for our murderer.

‘I didn’t know him well enough to have a true opinion of him, but my first impression of him was that he was a bit...lax, shall we say, in his morals. He was a good bishop, he just sometimes seemed not to be as good a man, if you understand.’

‘Good at preaching, not so much at practising.’

‘Exactly. I don’t mean to say he was a bad man, because I don’t think he was. He was human just like the rest of us.’ Samuel shrugged. ‘But like I said. I barely knew him, so it’s quite possible my opinion could be extremely inaccurate.’

Sherlock and John exchanged a look. ‘No, that sounds about right,’ John said with a nod.

‘You’re saying he was killed because of it,’ Samuel guessed dully. Neither man answered. ‘I thought as much. He must have been an even worse man than he seemed if he was murdered for it.’

Again Sherlock and John looked at each other, silently debating whether or not to tell him what we knew. ‘The press is going to find out soon enough anyway,’ John said. ‘Might as well tell him.’

‘You’ve seen the papers, I presume?’ Sherlock asked. Samuel nodded. ‘The woman he was with was not his daughter. She was a prostitute.’

Samuel’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Really.’ Then he sighed, and when he spoke he sounded many years older than the thirty-five he appeared to be. ‘I suppose it shouldn’t shock me, the way society is going these days.... Do you have any idea who the killer was?’

‘None whatsoever,’ John said, at the same time Sherlock said, ‘A fairly good one,yes.’ Samuel looked at them in confusion until John amended, ‘Well, we have a general idea of what he looks like and how he acts, but we don’t know specifically who he is.’

‘Well? What exactly do you know? Maybe I know someone who fits the description.’

‘Or maybe you are the killer,’ Sherlock said coldly, staring the priest down, ‘and you want to know just how much I know about you already.’ John looked on for a minute, completely baffled. Even he could see that Father Samuel didn’t match the description Sherlock had gotten from the crime scene. What was he doing?

Samuel didn’t flinch or look away. After a long, tense moment, he said, ‘If I was the killer, or even if I was helping the killer, I would have just told you to go away instead of talking with you. You are, after all, in my sacristy, and I would have been completely within my rights to refuse to speak with you. But I’m not the killer, nor am I helping the killer. In fact, whoever the killer is, I’d like to help you see him in jail, if you’ll let me.’

Sherlock nodded, as if the priest had passed some sort of test. John supposed he had. ‘The murderer is a short but well-built man with great physical strength, and he is a hypocrite.’

‘All men are hypocrites,’ Samuel said.

‘Yes, yes,’ Sherlock said impatiently, ‘John has been good enough to enlighten me already.’ As John tried to work out whether or not to take offense to that, he continued, ‘This one is the sort of hypocrite that beats a bishop to death over a prostitute, then tears his cross from his neck and throws it in the mud before lighting him on fire.’

Samuel had absolutely nothing to say to that for a long, long moment. Finally he said, ‘That wasn’t in the papers.’

‘No, it most definitely wasn’t,’ Sherlock agreed. ‘Never trust the press. Is there anyone in your parish who fits that description?’

Samuel was silent for a minute as he thought that over. ‘Not that I can think of, but this is a large parish and I haven’t been here long, so there’s a good chance I just don’t know him.’

‘Who was the priest here before you?’

‘His name was Father Gabriel Sanchez.’

‘What parish is he at now?’

‘I believe he’s at Winchester Holy Trinity, about a half-hour’s drive from here.’ Sherlock didn’t look pleased at the prospect of yet another long drive, and for once John absolutely agreed with him.

‘Were there any other parishes the bishop regularly said mass at?’

‘Not that I’m aware of. He might have said mass in London a couple of times, but as far as I know this was his primary parish.’

Sherlock nodded and stood. ‘One last question before we leave: will his funeral be here?’

Samuel stood as well. ‘No, it will be at St Paul’s in London, I’d guess sometime this week.’

‘Excellent.’ And Sherlock strode out of the office. John stood up to follow him.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said to Samuel, ‘he has terrible manners.’ He raised my voice for that last part in the hopes that Sherlock would hear it.

He must have, because he called back, ‘John, we’re leaving now.’

John put out his hand, and the priest shook it. ‘I’ll let you know if I see anyone here meeting the description of the murderer.’

‘Thank you.’

‘John!’

‘I’m coming!’ John caught up with his companion, who was irritatedly holding the wooden door open. The distraught woman from earlier, John noticed, had left. ‘You really have got to learn some patience.’

‘I have plenty of patience. And my manners are just fine, thank you.’

‘You just keep telling yourself that.’

‘I will. Now come on, we have another priest to talk to.’

 

* * * * *

As it happened, Father Gabriel Sanchez didn’t have any more helpful information than Father Samuel had had, and he was considerably less friendly about it, too. Father Sanchez was an ageing, stern sort of man with steely eyes and salt-and-pepper hair and beard. He was in the middle of a service when Sherlock and John slipped into his church, and the glare he was giving them was visible  even from the back of the church. Winchester Holy Trinity was a tiny parish compared to the cathedral, housed in a mid-nineteenth century stone building. It was somewhat run down, looking as though nobody had put any money or time into it in at least thirty years, and had a stern look to it, just like its priest. At least the church couldn’t actually act rude. Father Sanchez could, and did.

It was more or less deserved, though. Sherlock cornered him in the sacristy after the service was over and asked him what he knew about the Bishop of Basingstoke, and the priest said he hadn’t known the bishop well and in any case he knew nothing about his death and didn’t want to talk to them, so would they leave him alone please. Sherlock tried to ask another question, but John grabbed him by the arm and dragged him out before the priest could get really angry. Most of the parishioners were still there, and some of them gave the two men odd looks as John firmly led Sherlock out of the church.

Once they were outside, Sherlock shook John off and gave _him_ a withering look. ‘John, we need to talk to him, he might know something.’

‘He doesn’t want to talk to us, and we don’t have the authority to make him. The last thing we need on our hands is an angry priest.’

‘They don’t actually commune with the heavens,’ Sherlock said with a hint of amusement. ‘We’re not going to be struck down by the wrath of God.’

Now it was John’s turn to give him a withering glare. ‘Why don’t we get Lestrade to come out here and interrogate him,’ John suggested. ‘He can’t exactly refuse to talk to someone with a legitimate police badge.’

‘I have a legitimate police badge.’ He reached in his coat pocket and pulled out Lestrade’s badge.

John snatched it from his hand. ‘That does it. I am definitely calling Lestrade out here. He can talk to Father Sanchez for us _and_ get his badge back.’ He shook his head. ‘Really, Sherlock, we’ve talked about this.’

‘About what?’ he asked innocently. John opened his mouth, changed his mind, and pulled his phone out of his pocket.

It only took Lestrade a moment to pick up; Sherlock had him pretty well conditioned to answer his phone quickly. ‘I need your help,’ John said without preamble.

‘What now? Did Sherlock fall in a hole or something?’

‘I wish. No, we need information from someone who’s refusing to talk to us. I thought maybe you could come out here and... Well, you know how Sherlock is with people.’

Lestrade snorted. Sherlock didn’t react, but John knew he was eavesdropping on the conversation. ‘Too well. Where are you?’

‘Winchester.’

‘ _Winchester_? You want me to come all the way out to Winchester just because Sherlock can’t figure out how to use his manners and communicate like a normal person?’

‘Well, he also sort of stole your badge. Again.’

Lestrade swore, colourfully. ‘I’m on my way. But you two owe me for this one.’

‘Not if we find your murderer. Then you owe us.’ He responded to that by hanging up, and  John turned to Sherlock. ‘He’s on his way.’

‘Good. We’ve got an hour or two to kill, then. Lunch?’

‘Definitely.’

They had a relatively decent lunch of sandwiches and crisps at the train station, and John read a slightly different account of the bishop’s murder in another newspaper while they waited for Lestrade to arrive. This one mentioned that the bishop had been lit on fire, but still nothing about Annie the prostitute. All the better, John supposed. Just because she lived a less-than-savoury lifestyle didn’t mean she deserved that sort of public scrutiny.

Lestrade showed up at about half past two, stepping off the train wearing his typical long dark coat and suit and looking somewhat annoyed. John waved him over. ‘This man had better have some very important information,’ he said as he joined John and Sherlock at their table.

‘We hope so too,’ John said. ‘Coffee?’

‘Please.’

John flagged down the waitress and ordered a coffee for Lestrade while Sherlock briefed him on their progress so far. He raised his eyebrows a lot but said nothing until Sherlock had finished.

‘So basically,’ he said, ‘you want me to pull rank on this priest to make him tell me if he ever knew a short, strong, hypocritical man in his time at Winchester Cathedral, have I got that right?’

‘Exactly,’ Sherlock confirmed. ‘And get his opinion on the Bishop of Basingstoke while you’re at it if you can.’

‘Well, I could do that,’ Lestrade said, ‘if I had my police badge.’ He looked at Sherlock expectantly and slowly held out his hand. Sherlock made his best innocent face.

‘Give it back, Sherlock,’ John said. Rolling his eyes a little, he pulled it out of his coat pocket and handed it over. Lestrade snatched it up and tucked it in his own pocket with a pointed glance at Sherlock.

‘ _Thank_ you,’ he said. ‘And thank _you_ ,’ he added to John, more genuinely, ‘for the coffee.’ He’d needed it desperately. ‘I’ll be off, then.’

‘Thanks for doing this, Greg,’ said John.

‘It’s not like I had a choice. But you’re welcome anyway.’ He sighed heavily. ‘Guess I should go get a car, then.’ Sherlock and John both nodded. Lestrade made a face and left.

‘Think he’ll get Father Sanchez to talk?’ John asked Sherlock as they both watched Lestrade’s retreating figure.

‘I have every bit of faith in our friend the detective inspector.’

Sherlock’s faith, it turned out, was warranted, because forty-five minutes later John’s phone buzzed in his pocket. ‘Any luck?’ he asked when he picked it up.

‘He’s a stubborn little man,’ Lestrade said, ‘but the badge did the trick. He wasn’t a fan of the bishop, but I don’t think he killed him.’

‘Neither does Sherlock. Anything on the suspect?’

‘He said he can’t remember every parishioner he’s ever had, but as far as he can remember he doesn’t know anyone fitting that description. He was pretty rude about it, though; he could be helping the killer.’

‘Maybe. Anything else?’

‘Not really. He got pretty annoyed with me toward the end, so I left. I’m on my way back now.’

‘Alright. Thanks a million.’

‘Anytime.’ He still sounded bitter about it, though. ‘Are you two staying here or heading back to London?’

‘I have no idea.’

‘All right. I guess I’ll meet you back at the station, then.’

‘Yeah.’

No sooner had John hung up than Sherlock was asking, ‘Well?’

‘Father Sanchez doesn’t know anyone with that description, apparently. Lestrade thinks he could be in cahoots with the killer.’

‘No, he worked alone,’ Sherlock said confidently. ‘Only three sets of footprints at the crime scene - the bishop’s, the prostitute’s, and the murderer’s; if there wasn’t an accomplice to the murder, why would the murderer have involved anyone else?’

‘Maybe he was bragging about the murder to a friend?’

‘Murderers don’t brag, not unless they want to be caught, and I already told you this one doesn’t. No. He worked alone.’

The logic was sound. As always. ‘So Father Sanchez is completely uninvolved, then.’

‘Unfortunately, yes.’

‘So we’re back to square one.’

John could see it pained him to admit it, but he said, ‘Yes.’

‘What’s your plan, then?’

‘Well, we could always go back to the cathedral and talk to some of the parishioners...’

‘You don’t actually have a plan, do you.’

‘I just told you my plan.’

‘That’s not a plan.’

‘Do you have a better plan?’

‘Yes. We go back to the flat, have a nice cup of tea, and go to sleep.’

‘That doesn’t help us catch the murderer.’

‘No, but it helps me relax so I don’t murder _you_ for dragging me all around the bloody United Kingdom.’

‘Winchester isn’t that far from London.’

‘It’s far enough. Can we please go home now, Sherlock?’

‘Fine, fine,’ he agreed impatiently. ‘The next train to London leaves in half an hour. We’ll check in with Lestrade and then leave.’

It took far too long for Lestrade to get back, in John’s opinion, and even Sherlock was starting to get restless by the time the detective inspector rejoined them. He looked more frazzled than when he’d left, which had been even worse than his usual somewhat frazzled appearance. He disliked murder cases almost as much as Sherlock enjoyed them. Several times on the train back to London John considered telling him he ought to take a vacation when this case was over, but that would have implied that he looked like he needed one, so John stayed quiet.

The train ride was a long and somewhat awkward one, and John was glad when they finally reached Charing Cross Station and stepped out onto the platform. Lestrade bid them good evening and left, presumably for New Scotland Yard, and Sherlock and John caught a cab and headed back to Baker Street. Sherlock insisted on ordering takeout again, and John let him because it wasn’t like anyone had bothered to go grocery shopping that week, so there was nothing remotely food like in the house. Besides the eyeballs he was keeping in the crisper, of course, but those weren’t exactly edible. Although John wouldn’t quite put it past Sherlock.

After dinner, John grabbed his computer and took advantage of the downtime to start working on the blog entry for the case, while Sherlock went to the window with his violin. He was playing some sort of minor key piece that John thought he remembered Sherlock once telling him was a Mendelssohn. It was lovely but not exactly conducive to blogging, so after a while John gave up and retired to his room, drifting off to sleep with the sound of the violin still echoing through the flat.

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one took kind of a long time...but thank you SO much to everyone who's read this, I didn't expect it to get even 10 hits so this is pretty much the most amazing thing. This chapter's mostly filler, as I was trying to stick to the timeframe of the murders as they happen in the musical, which meant I had 3 days between the bishop's death and the general's, but things start getting exciting from here!

Sherlock was kind enough to let John sleep in until ten the next morning before he awoke to the sound of the violin. He was playing a fast, complicated piece now, very different from the slow and lyrical one he’d been playing when John had fallen asleep. More Bach, probably. Sherlock liked Bach.

Groggily, John put on a robe and slippers and padded to the bathroom to shower. When he emerged half an hour later, hair wet and trailing  a veritable hurricane of steam behind him but feeling considerably more awake, Sherlock had moved on to a new piece.

John flopped down in his armchair and picked up the newspaper, which Mrs Hudson had delivered when it had arrived. Sherlock was wearing the same deep purple shirt he’d been wearing the day before. ‘Did you even sleep at all?’ John asked him over the newspaper.

He paused mid-bow stroke and looked at John as though he’d suddenly begun speaking Russian. ‘What time is it?’ John gestured with the newspaper to the clock on the mantelpiece, and Sherlock glanced at it. ‘Possibly,’ he answered after a moment.

Which, of course, meant he hadn’t budged from his spot by the window all night. He really was impossible. At least he’d been playing Bach, though, instead of those strange and somewhat dissonant compositions of his that he liked to play while thinking. ‘Shall I make coffee?’

‘Brilliant idea.’ He set the violin down on top of a stack of books. ‘Make toast while you’re at it.’

‘Yes, my lord,’ John muttered, setting the paper down on the coffee table and going to the kitchen. Sherlock had left beakers and other chemical apparatus all over the counter again, and John had to shove them to the sides to create room to make coffee. One of these days he was just going to say ‘sod your experiments’ and shove the whole lot into the bin. While the coffee brewed, he slipped several pieces of bread in the toaster and rummaged about the incredibly disorganised cabinets for jam. All they had left was blueberry; John had used up the strawberry sometime last week and hadn’t had the motivation to go get more. He made a valiant attempt to clean up the kitchen while he waited, putting a couple clean plates away and throwing out a few moldy food items, which only made the empty refrigerator look that much more pathetic.

‘Sherlock, can I throw the eyeballs out yet?’ John called.

‘They’re an experiment!’ he replied indignantly.

‘If they’re not gone by Wednesday I’m throwing them out, experiment or no.’

‘John, those eyeballs could lead to a breakthrough discovery that would change medical science forever.’

‘Wednesday.’ John tossed out half a sausage which was starting to look suspiciously like a caterpillar, crammed a couple more teacups in the already full sink, and called it good just as the coffee maker beeped. He poured two cups; one black with two sugars the way Sherlock liked it, and one with just milk the way he liked it. Then he threw the toast on a plate, grabbed the jam and a knife, and went back out into the sitting room.

Sherlock was sitting in his armchair thumbing through the newspaper John had left on the coffee table. He put out a hand for his coffee without looking up. John handed it to him, then sat down, sipped his own coffee, and began spreading jam on his toast. ‘Anything interesting?’

He folded the newspaper and threw it back down on the table. ‘Absolutely nothing.’

John picked it up anyway, because Sherlock’s idea of interesting and his were about as similar as a rabbit and a grizzly bear. John’s involved significantly fewer people dying. There was an article about the presidential elections in the United States, a bit on the conflict in Israel, a feature on an exhibit at the British Museum.... It was shaping up to be just as boring a paper as Sherlock said it was, and then a familiar picture caught John’s eye.

‘Another picture of you in the hat,’ he said, looking up at Sherlock. He was sipping his coffee disinterestedly.

‘Mm.’

John skimmed the article. ‘They know you’re on the case. Still nothing about Annie, though.’

‘Annie?’

‘The prostitute, Sherlock.’

‘Ah yes.’ He still sounded bored, and John got the distinct impression he’d forgotten the girl’s name. If he’d ever known it at all.

‘The press is getting slow.’

‘That or someone is doing an excellent job of covering it up.’

‘True.’ John ate his toast and flipped through the rest of the paper, finding nothing else of interest and simultaneously lamenting the lack of strawberry jam in the flat. He hoped this case would be resolved soon so he could go grocery shopping. Or make Sherlock go; one of the two.

‘So what is it today?’ John asked, setting the paper down on top of several old ones which were piling up on the floor beside his armchair. Mrs Hudson was going to _love_ that.

Sherlock downed the last of his coffee and set the cup down with a clink. ‘Hm?’

‘Saturday it was brothels, yesterday it was churches. What will it be today? Boarding schools?’

‘That’s not a bad idea. Perhaps our killer is someone’s father.’

‘Sherlock.’

‘Kidding.’

‘So really. What is it today?’

‘Cane shops.’

‘Cane shops,’ John repeated. That was not at all the response he had been expecting. Although really, he didn’t really know what he had been expecting.

‘Oh yes. A cane strong enough to bludgeon a man to death with is one that is worth a bit of money, and I doubt our murderer beat the bishop to death with a family heirloom, which means the cane is relatively new. If any of the nearby cane shops recently sold a cane like that to a man that fits our description, we might get a name or address out of it.’

‘It sounds a bit...unlikely,’ John said skeptically. ‘Do you have any idea how many cane shops there are in London?’

‘Twelve,’ Sherlock answered promptly, and John had to wonder if he just knew that or if he’d looked it up. Knowing him, it was the former. ‘And that’s assuming he bought it in London. But it’s our best shot right now.’ His tone betrayed his frustration over the lack of useful information in this case.

‘Okay, so where do we start?’

‘James Smith and Sons, on New Oxford Street. Finish your toast and get dressed.’

John finished off the toast and coffee and stood, leaving the dishes where they were next to last night’s empty takeout boxes. He could clean them up later, or perhaps Mrs Hudson would despite her protestations that she wasn’t their housekeeper. ‘Go change,’ John ordered Sherlock.

‘What, you don’t like the purple shirt?’

‘You wore the purple shirt yesterday. Put a different one on.’

Five minutes later, dressed in his favourite khaki coloured cardigan, John went back into the sitting room to see Sherlock waiting impatiently for him. He had a gift for making people feel slow even when they moved at a normal pace. At least he’d changed; he was wearing a blue shirt and his coat now, although John suspected from the wrinkles in his black pants that he hadn’t changed those.

Sherlock turned his coat collar up and headed down the stairs. John resisted the urge to make him fold the collar back down and followed him.

Another irritating cab ride later they were standing outside James Smith and Sons of London. It was a tall, rounded white building with huge black letters halfway up the side spelling out the name. John wondered what in the world they needed with a building that large; walking sticks didn’t take up that much space, and he doubted they had anywhere near enough to fill the huge store.

As usual, though, he was wrong. James Smith and his sons must have been busy men, because there were more walking sticks and umbrellas inside that store than John had ever seen before in my entire life in all of London. There were walking sticks made of every sort of wood imaginable, topped with every sort of head imaginable - a lion’s head, a duck, even a man smoking a pipe. John inspected that one more closely. ‘Look, Sherlock, it’s wearing a deerstalker!’

‘Oh, shut up.’

‘No, really, it could be you!’ He squinted at it. ‘Not enough cheekbone, though.’

Sherlock ignored the jibe about his face and kept walking down the rows of walking sticks. John followed, grinning.

They had to walk through a veritable forest of walking sticks and umbrellas to get to the front desk. There was a suited man behind the desk, a fairly nondescript sort of gentleman with a bit of a beard and well-combed dark hair. He looked like the sort of bloke who would carry a walking stick. A plaque on his heavy mahogany desk announced that he was Joseph Smith II. ‘Can I help you?’ he asked mildly as John and Sherlock approached him.

‘Certainly,’ Sherlock said. ‘Have you sold any walking sticks with heavy knobs on top in the last few days? It would have been Friday or before.’

Mr Smith looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. ‘You’re kidding, right, sir?’

‘Most definitely not.’

‘The only sort of walking stick we sell is the type with heavy knobs on top,’ Mr Smith said, looking somewhat bemused, ‘and we’ve sold quite a few of them in the last few days.’

‘May I look at your records, then?’ Sherlock asked.

‘I’m afraid not, sir. What do you want to know, anyway?’

‘I told you.’ He looked exasperated. ‘Very well. Have you had any customers Friday or before that were short but well-built and well-dressed?’

The poor man was giving Sherlock the “you’re off your rocker” look again. John sympathised completely. ‘I don’t remember what all of our customers look like, sir. May I ask why you want to know?’

‘Have you read the papers or watched the television lately, Mr Smith?’

‘Yes, why?’

‘Then you should know why I want to know.’

Mr Smith looked even more bemused now. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

Sherlock threw up his hands. ‘The murder! That bishop. He was killed with a walking stick.’

Mr Smith’s eyes widened. ‘And you think the murderer bought the walking stick here?’

‘Ah, now he understands!’ Mr Smith looked slightly insulted, as he had cause to do. ‘I think there is a distinct possibility, yes. So if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to see your records.’

Mr Smith looked as though he did in fact mind, but he pulled out a heavy leather bound book from one of the desk drawers nonetheless. ‘Here, Mr...?’

‘Holmes. Sherlock Holmes,’ Sherlock introduced himself absently as he flipped through the book from the back, looking for more recent sales.

A light dawned on Mr Smith’s face. ‘Oh! I didn’t recognise you without the hat!’ He turned to John. ‘You must be Dr Watson, then. I love your blog. Especially that one about the aluminium crutch.’ John nodded and smiled thinly. He enjoyed writing the blog, but all the recognition for it was starting to get irritating, especially when everyone’s favourite was the aluminium crutch. He’d preferred the speckled blonde himself.

‘Here,’ Sherlock said abruptly, stabbing a finger at the record book and inadvertently saving John from awkward conversation about his blog. ‘Friday morning, a certain Mr Josiah Clarke purchased a walking stick with a pewter lion’s head. Describe this Mr Clarke to me.’

Mr Smith frowned, racking his brain for the memory of that particular customer. ‘I can’t, Mr Holmes. As far as I remember, he was just an ordinary gentleman.’

Sherlock was looking more and more irritated by the minute. ‘Do you have a duplicate of the walking stick you sold him?’

Mr Smith nodded, his face brightening at the prospect of being able to do something useful at last. ‘Just let me go get it.’

He disappeared into the jungle of walking sticks and emerged a moment later carrying a well-crafted lion’s head stick. Sherlock took it from him and examined it, walking up and down a few paces with it. ‘This is an exact duplicate? Same size, everything?’

‘Yes sir,’ Mr Smith replied proudly.

Sherlock took one more look at it, then handed it back. ‘Too long. Bring me all the walking sticks you’ve sold here in the past week.’

‘All of them?’

‘That is what I said, isn’t it?’ Mr Smith looked as though he was hoping to get paid extra for putting up with Sherlock’s eccentricities but hurried off into the back again and returned with an armful of walking sticks. There were at least twenty of them, and it took Sherlock a good hour and a half to sort through them all, closely inspecting them and rejecting the ones that were too long or otherwise didn’t fit with his image of the murderer. Finally he narrowed it down to three, identified who they’d been sold to, and proceeded to interrogate the unfortunate Mr Smith as to the character of the customers who had bought them. Mr Smith turned out to be an incredibly unhelpful sort of bloke with a terrible memory for faces and could say nothing more than that they had all been “normal-looking gentlemen.” Finally, when Sherlock had determined he would find nothing else useful there, John thanked the poor man and ushered his companion out before he went for the clerk’s throat.

‘Useless!’ Sherlock exploded as he pushed open the front door of the store and we emerged into the brisk September morning. ‘Completely and utterly useless!’

‘Not everyone has as great a genius for minutiae as you, Sherlock,’ John pointed out, flagging down the first cab he saw.

‘But certainly he could remember what some of his clients looked like!’

‘He must see at least twenty different clients a day, some of which he sells products to and some of which he doesn’t. Asking him to remember the face of everyone who’s bought a walking stick in the last week is like...asking me to describe all of my walk-in patients over the last month. It’s virtually impossible.’

Sherlock fumed in silence after that as the cabbie drove us to the next address on Sherlock’s  meticulously written list of London cane stores. John had a feeling it wasn’t really Mr Smith he was irritated with but himself for having so little information on the third day of the case, so he stayed quiet and let Sherlock work it out on his own.

The next cane shop was a bit more helpful; at least, the man at the front desk was able to tell them that he couldn’t recall seeing a short, well-built man buy a walking stick in the past week. They went through the same ordeal with the examination of every single cane sold that week, though fortunately this was a smaller store and it took a considerably shorter amount of time for them to finish there and move on to the third of the twelve stores. They visited all twelve of them over the course of the day, and with each blank they drew, Sherlock’s temper grew shorter and shorter to the point where, at the eleventh cane shop, he stormed in the front door and without so much as saying please demanded to see every walking stick sold in the past week. The clerk, a young blonde woman, was clearly shaken by his order and complied without hesitation. As expected, though, he found nothing, and on the way to the twelfth shop John said, ‘Sherlock, perhaps you’d better let me handle the next one.’

The heat of his glare was nearly enough to light the interior of the cab on fire. Fortunately physics decreed that wasn’t possible. ‘Fine,’ he said shortly.

‘And you really need to calm down. You nearly scared that poor girl out of her skin at the last place.’

‘I am perfectly calm.’

‘No, you’re not. Look, just...take a couple deep breaths, okay?’

‘I don’t need deep breaths.’

‘Sure you don’t. Just...let me do the talking this time, please?’

‘I said fine.’

And then they were there. Sherlock tried to barge in the front door, but John grabbed his arm and held him back with a stern look. He rolled his eyes and sighed but let me enter first.

It was something of a sketchy little shop, small and darkly lit. It was really more of a curio and antique shop than a cane shop, but it claimed to sell antique walking sticks as well, so Sherlock had determined it would be worth checking out. In reality he was just getting a bit desperate. In a murder case as high-profile as this one, it looked rather bad for him to know virtually nothing.

The man behind the counter was old and dirty and kind of hairy, and John really didn’t want to have anything to do with him, but he’d offered to handle this one and he couldn’t exactly back out now. ‘Excuse me,’ he ventured. The man raised his head, and John realised he must have been sleeping. He blinked at them through clouded grey eyes. ‘Have you sold any walking sticks in the past week?’

The old man continued to blink for a moment, then said in a slow, scratchy voice, ‘You two are the first customers I’ve had in months.’

‘Ah.’ John was almost tempted to buy something just to give the poor bloke some business, but nothing really caught his eye. Sherlock, on the other hand, was quite interested in a skull that was sitting in the grimy window sill. ‘No,’ John told him firmly.

‘But, John, it would make such a good companion for the other one!’

‘We are not buying it. And that’s final.’

‘Please?’ He had picked it up and was holding it in front of him, giving John what he supposed were meant to be puppy dog eyes.

‘Absolutely not. You don’t know where that’s been, Sherlock.’

‘Inside a man’s head.’

‘Three pounds,’ the old man offered. Eagerly Sherlock pulled out his wallet and handed over the necessary currency.

‘Pleasure doing business with you,’ he said triumphantly and, tucking the skull under his arm, strode out of the shop. The old man treated John to a yellowed, gap-toothed smile as he followed him.

‘Well,’ said Sherlock, suddenly in a much better mood, ‘that was fun.’

‘You are the only person I know who thinks buying a skull from a creepy old man in a shady corner of London is fun.’

He was ignoring John now, admiring his new skull. ‘Alas, poor Yorick!’ he lamented to it, ‘I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy...’

John gave him up as a lost cause and got them a cab home.

 

 

* * * * *

 

Sherlock’s new skull was grinning at John from the mantelpiece when he woke up the next morning. Sherlock had made a huge show of setting it up opposite his old one, angling it just right, and stepping back to admire it while John had done my utmost to ignore him. The acquisition of the skull, which in an uncharacteristic lack of originality he’d nicknamed Yorick, had put him in considerably higher spirits, to both John’s delight and dismay. Sherlock had glanced happily at it at intervals all evening while the two of them had watched crap telly until John crashed on the couch.

Sherlock was gone now, hopefully to his own room to sleep, and for a moment John couldn’t figure out what had woken me. Then his phone vibrated in his pocket again and he figured it out.

It was Lestrade this time, not Sherlock as usual.

**The bishop’s funeral is at St Paul’s at 11, are you two going? -DI Lestrade**

I don’t know, I’ll ask Sherlock. -JW

‘Sherlock!’ John called, just as his flatmate emerged from his bedroom wearing his favourite blue robe and holding his phone.

‘Yes, we’re going,’ he answered, beating John to the question. He must have gotten Lestrade’s text as well, and from the looks of it, John wasn’t the only one it had woken up, either.

‘You realise that means you have to put on your good suit, right?’

‘Yes,’ he said, though he did not by any means look thrilled by it.

John checked my phone for the time. Half past nine. ‘Want coffee first?’

‘God yes.’

John forced himself up off the couch with a groan and went into the kitchen to make coffee. Fortunately there was still enough space left over on the counter from the previous morning that he didn’t have to shove any more of Sherlock’s precious experiments out of the way. Thankfully he also didn’t have to go in the fridge again and see those eyeballs just kind of sitting there in the crisper. He was sorely tempted to renege on his promise to give Sherlock till Wednesday and just throw them out now, but he didn’t want to ruin his friend’s good mood, so he left them. He did, however, do a few dishes after he took Sherlock his coffee and finished his. He felt rather proud of himself now that there wasn’t a precarious stack of dirty dishes threatening to topple all over the kitchen floor and allowed himself a moment to survey his handiwork before going to put on a suit.

Once they were appropriately dressed and thoroughly uncomfortable, they hailed a cab and went to St Paul’s Cathedral. There was a rather large turnout for the funeral - the bishop had been well-loved, apparently, despite his penchant for prostitutes, although John supposed there were very few people who knew about that still. The two of them had to fight their way through a huge crowd of black-clad Christians to get inside, and by the time they took a seat in the very back John had already had more than his share of the place for the day. They waited for around twenty minutes for the funeral to actually start, a span of time which Sherlock spent craning his neck presumably looking for the murderer.

‘Do you really think he’s going to be here?’ John asked Sherlock after about five minutes of this. His odd behaviour was starting to get disapproving looks from the congregation.

‘I think it is a distinct possibility, yes,’ he replied, still looking.

The service was a long and incredibly boring one involving a lot of fanciful vestments, candles, incense, and monotonously intoned prayers. There were a few people crying, old women mostly, but for the most part the congregation was dry-eyed. John felt no emotion whatsoever for the man’s death, despite the gruesome manner in which it had occurred. Part of that was probably due to the fact that he knew the bishop been with a prostitute moments before his murder. John was the exception, not the rule, however; the general public seemed to regard the Bishop of Basingstoke as a martyr, even though nothing could be further from the truth. There was a lot of talk of “this brave man” and “the shepherd tending to his flock,” at which John actually snorted, a sound he then had to cover up with a cough to avoid the suspicious glances of the people around him.

Finally, after what was possibly the longest two hours of John’s life, most of which was spent faking his way through prayers and avoiding making eye contact with the blubbering elderly woman sitting next to him, the service ended. People started filing out the doors, and John was ready to follow them, but Sherlock made no move. He just continued doing what he’d been doing the entire service, which was not even bothering to pretend like he cared and scouring the mass of people for anyone who looked remotely like the murderer. John poked him. ‘Sherlock, the service is over.’

‘I know.’ He still didn’t budge, not until the last few people were trickling out onto the street. Then, at last, he stood up and they made our way outside.

‘Well, that’s two hours of my life I can never get back,’ John grumbled as they left. ‘Did you at least see someone who fits our description?’

Sherlock opened his mouth to answer just as they heard the scream.

 

 

* * * * *

 

_‘...and a man who liked buggering children,’ the general said, chuckling, as he exited the cathedral._

_‘I could hardly keep a straight face!’ his companion agreed, and the two of them burst into renewed laughter at the thought of the good things that had been said about the bishop. Neither of them noticed the man following them through the crowd until he spoke._

_‘Nothing like a good laugh at a close friend’s funeral, I always say, eh, gentlemen?’ he said, getting between the two of them and putting an arm around each of their shoulders as if he were an old friend himself. He laughed a very false and ominous laugh._

_The two men spun away from him, and indignantly the general said, ‘You can’t threaten me, I’m a general!’_

_The strange man advanced on him, brandishing his walking stick with a feral grin on his face. ‘Then they’ll probably put up a statue in your honour, you miserable hypocrite!’ And with that, he jabbed the head of the walking stick into the general’s stomach, sending him reeling into one of the pillars in front of the cathedral. His companion looked on in horror as the man proceeded to shove the bottom end of the stick violently down the general’s throat. The general gagged, a wet, choking sort of sound, and slid down the pillar to rest in a crumpled heap at the man’s feet. The other man stared at his dead friend in shock for a moment, then turned tail and ran._

_Swinging his stick and laughing, the murderer sauntered away._


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been such a long time since I posted a chapter, school got kind of crazy...but here it is!

Sherlock and John took off running toward the shriek without a second thought, barrelling through the crowd and pushing people aside as they went. The sound came again, the high-pitched cry of a frightened woman, and they shoved their way through the mass of people until they reached the centre of the mob and the source of the scream. It was a middle-aged woman in a conservative black dress, one hand pressed to her mouth and the other pointing to something at her feet.

It was a body. Of course.

John knelt down next to it, picking up the limp hand and feeling for a pulse. There was none, but the skin was still warm. ‘Get back!’ Sherlock was shouting. ‘Will you all get back, please!’

John stood up, still breathing hard from the sprint. ‘He’s only been dead a minute or two,’ he told Sherlock.

‘Call Lestrade,’ he said, a hint of excitement in his tone. The crowd of witnesses was backing away, either out of horror at the dead body in front of them or because of Sherlock’s shouting. A man had put his arm around the poor woman who’d found the body and was comforting her. John pulled out my phone and called Lestrade.

‘How did the funeral go?’ he asked immediately.

‘There’s been another murder.’

‘Really? Where? When?’ He heard John’s laboured breathing and added, ‘Are you alright?’

‘I’m fine. And it was just now, right outside St Paul’s. Literally on the front steps. How soon can you get down here?’

‘Give me five minutes.’ He swore. ‘I bet Sherlock’s loving this.’

‘Believe me, he is.’ John hung up. Sherlock was on his knees next to the body, investigating. John left him to it and turned to the crowd of onlookers.

‘The police are on their way,’ he assured them. Their faces all looked the same, pale and fearful. ‘Does anyone know who this man is?’ Silence. ‘Alright, did anyone see the murderer?’ Again, nothing. ‘Did anyone see _anything_?’

The woman who’d found the body spoke up in a tremulous voice. ‘I just turned round and he was lying there,’ she said, and burst into tears. The man who was with her rubbed her shoulder soothingly. ‘I didn’t see anyone else.’

‘Are you absolutely sure? Nobody suspicious?’ She shook her head. John looked over the group of frightened faces. ‘None of you saw anyone suspicious? He would have been short, well-built, well-dressed, and carrying a walking stick.’ Their stares were changing from shocked to just plain bemused. ‘Right, then.’

Sherlock hopped to his feet, delight plain on his face. ‘Lestrade’s on his way,’ John informed him.

‘Lovely. The victim is a retired army officer, hasn’t been in service for three years at least, decorated and proud of it, a bit pompous, lives a lavish lifestyle, was married but his wife died years ago, no children. His name is General Lord Glossop, and he was fifty-three.’

‘How--’

‘Uniform, old and frayed but carefully pressed and mended; he’s been out of service for a while but still wears the uniform, hence pompous. Medals meticulously polished, indicating he’s proud of his service. Well-styled hair and expensive watch betray the lifestyle. Indentation in left ring finger from wedding ring but only slight, indicating that he hasn’t worn the ring in years. Not divorced; there are pictures of his wife in his wallet but none with children. His name and age I know from his driver’s license.’ He rattled all of this off in about ten seconds without stopping for breath. ‘He was killed by a long, straight object being shoved down his throat.’

‘Our man with the walking stick again?’

‘Almost certainly.’ Sirens wailed, and two police cars and an ambulance pulled up. Lestrade jumped out of the first car before it had hardly stopped.

‘What happened?’ he asked as the other officers got to work putting up yellow police tape and wrangling the crowd.

Sherlock briefed him on the situation, repeating his deductions and identification of the victim, and John added that none of the “witnesses” had seen anything.

‘None of them?’ Lestrade asked incredulously.

‘So they claim.’

‘A man is brutally murdered on the front steps of St Paul’s in broad daylight right in the middle of hundreds of people, and you’re telling me not a single one of them saw anything.’

‘That’s what they said. Not even the woman who found the body saw what happened.’

Lestrade ran a hand through his thinning grey hair and sighed. ‘Right. I suppose I should question them, then.’

‘Probably.’ Lestrade ducked under the police tape and approached the crying woman, and two paramedics lifted the general’s body onto a stretcher and loaded it into the ambulance. John turned to Sherlock. ‘So...’

‘We’re back on the scent, John!’ he said enthusiastically. ‘One murder might leave us at a dead end, but two! Two murders is really something to go on!’ He clapped his hands. ‘Oh, this is good.’

‘Not now, Sherlock,’ John reprimanded him. His friend ignored him and began pacing back and forth along the police tape.

‘A bishop and a general. They must be related in some way...but how?’ He had completely stopped talking to John and turned his dialogue inward now. ‘Glossop, Glossop...never heard of him. Hmm. John!’

John started. ‘Yes?’

‘You’ve got that internet thing, yes? Look this man up for me.’

‘You’ve got the “internet thing” too,’ John reminded him. ‘You’re the one with the fancy iPhone. Look him up yourself.’

‘Left suit pocket,’ was his answer.

‘Oh no, we are not doing this again. You can do it yourself, you’re a grown man.’

‘It’s easier if you do it.’

‘Nope.’

He dropped it and continued pacing. ‘A bishop and a general,’ he muttered. ‘There must be some connection...’

John left him to it and went to see how Lestrade was doing. He was looking very harassed when John found him amidst the sea of people, holding a pen and a mostly blank notepad, taking down notes. ‘You were right,’ he said to John when he had finished with the man he was talking to. ‘None of them saw a thing.’

‘Our man is sneaky, whoever he is,’ John agreed. ‘Do any of them know anything about the general?’

‘A few of them have heard of him, but other than that, not really. He’s apparently not as famous as he seemed to think he was.’

‘People rarely are.’

‘Mm. So what’s Sherlock’s plan now?’

‘I have no idea. He’s just pacing and muttering to himself about how there must be some connection between the bishop and the general.’

‘Is there a connection?’

‘If he thinks so, probably.’

Lestrade shook his head. ‘Just...try to keep him from getting too excited, yeah? It’s unhealthy to get excited about murder.’

‘Yeah, well, this is Sherlock we’re talking about.’ John groaned at the very thought of it. There was no way he was getting any sleep tonight, not as excited as his flatmate was now. ‘I’ll do what I can.’

‘Thanks.’ Lestrade walked off to go talk to more clueless witnesses, and John stood for a moment indecisively, trying to determine whether I’d rather go see what was on Sherlock’s mind or do my own investigating among the witnesses. The witnesses won; or, rather, dealing with Sherlock when he was high on murder lost.

He must have talked to at least fifty random Anglicans before he finally found one that was any use - a gaunt, disciplined man in his forties who had served under General Glossop in the military years before. According to him, the victim was a decent general with an overblown sense of self-importance, which fit perfectly with Sherlock’s analysis of him. The general hadn’t had any enemies that this man knew of, though it was quite possible he’d irritated someone with his ceaseless talk of his army campaigns. That was hardly a reason to murder somebody, though.

Meanwhile, murmured rumours and commentary were spreading through the witnesses. The killer was a madman, the killer hated the upper class, he had some nerve to kill right outside St Paul’s. Someone had even guessed that this was the same man that had killed the bishop only four days earlier. Sherlock and John were there for hours trying to interrogate everyone who’d been at the scene of the crime, and as evening approached, people started to get even more frightened as they began to worry that maybe they were next.

Finally Lestrade dispersed the crowd with a few words about how the police were on it and there was nothing to worry about, which were probably meant to be reassuring but only increased the murmurs, and soon he, Sherlock, and John were the only ones left.

‘I hope you’ve got a good idea of who this killer is,’ Lestrade said to Sherlock. ‘The public is getting restless.’

‘A few,’ Sherlock said abstractedly. He’d spent the entire afternoon pacing and muttering to himself but altogether looked like he was beginning to enjoy this case.

‘Care to share them?’

‘Later.’ He suddenly snapped out of whatever cloud his head had been stuck in all day and added, ‘Let me follow through on them a bit more first. John, we’re going home. Lestrade, care to give us a ride?’

‘Get a cab.’ His voice was short, and he looked thoroughly worn out.

‘Please?’

‘No.’ He walked away, got in his police car, and drove off, leaving Sherlock and John alone in the dark in front of St Paul’s.

There was a moment of somewhat awkward silence, which John broke by saying, ‘Right, I’ll get us a cab, shall I?’

Sherlock was in high enough spirits to actually cook dinner that night, miraculously, so they had a nice pork roast. Sherlock laughed when John expressed his surprise at the fact that he could actually cook. ‘Just because I never cook doesn’t mean I can’t, John,’ he said. After dinner he suggested a game of Cluedo, and when John vehemently nixed that idea, he just shrugged and picked up his violin, setting into a series of Bach pieces in quick succession. John took his laptop and snuck into his bedroom. This second murder had really done wonders for his mood, and frankly it scared John just a little bit.

He spent a little while updating his blog, ignoring his sister’s comments. After he’d finished he meant to do a bit of research on this General Glossop, but instead got distracted by a cat video Mrs Hudson had sent him (she was just now discovering the abundance of cats on the internet and was loving it). He ended up finding nothing out and eventually falling asleep with his laptop still on and the sound of the violin ringing through the flat.

 

* * * * *

 

John woke up to the sound of Sherlock whistling, which was enough in itself to make him want to stay in bed. Sherlock had let him sleep in this morning, at least; it was almost eleven. He noticed immediately that his laptop, which he was fairly certain had been on the bed when he’d fallen asleep, was closed and sitting on his nightstand. Sherlock must have moved it; John wondered if he’d been using it again. He grabbed it and padded out into the sitting room, carefully avoiding stepping on any of the multiple potentially dangerous items laying about.

‘Good morning, John,’ Sherlock said brightly as John flopped down in his armchair. ‘Coffee?’

He held a cup out, and John eyed it with extreme suspicion. Sherlock making coffee happened about as often as Halley’s Comet. ‘You made coffee?’

‘Mrs Hudson brought it up. She heard we’re on another case and figured we needed it. Don’t worry, there’s no sugar in it.’ Which was code for “don’t worry, I haven’t put anything potentially dangerous in it.” John had never quite forgiven him for the last time and Sherlock knew it. Relieved, John took the cup gratefully.

‘She is a lifesaver,’ he said. Coffee had never tasted quite so good. ‘We really ought to pay her more.’

‘She isn’t our housekeeper,’ he reminded John, and they both grinned at that. Sherlock sat down in his armchair and sipped his own coffee. ‘You were researching Glossop last night.’

‘You were using my laptop!’ John said triumphantly. ‘I knew it!’

‘No, your light was on so I looked in your room and your laptop was still on. All I did was close it and put it on the nightstand.’ There was an unspoken ‘this time’ in there somewhere; Sherlock had a bad habit of using John’s laptop without permission.

‘Yeah, I was going to research him but I got distracted.’

‘I noticed.’ His voice was laughing. ‘Did you find anything out?’

‘Like I said, I got distracted.’

‘Let’s look him up now, then, shall we?’ He grabbed John’s laptop off the coffee table before he could protest and opened it up. John could hear tapping as he entered the password, and he made a mental note to change it. Again. For only about the fifteenth time since he’d moved in with Sherlock. ‘Let’s see here,’ Sherlock muttered, staring at the screen. ‘Glossop...Glossop...ah! Here we go!’ He clicked on a page and read aloud. ‘“General Lord Glossop, honourably discharged from the British Armed Forces in 2009 after eight years of service, received a Military Cross and a Distinguished Service Order for his time in Afghanistan.” Don’t suppose you ever met him during your time there, John?’

‘Sorry, no.’

‘Ah well. One can’t have everything. “A member of the Board of Governors at St Jude’s Hospital”...Hm, here’s his marriage announcement. “William Glossop married Charlotte Murray on January 17th, 1988.” So that’s the wife.’ He was silent for another moment, presumably sorting through results on Google. ‘And the wife’s obituary. “Charlotte Murray Glossop, died March 28th, 2007.” Right in the middle of his military service. No children, like I said.’

‘Does he have any family in London?’ John asked.

‘None that I can find. His father was the only parent present at his wedding. His parents in law are both dead as well;  it says so in his wife’s obituary. Both he and his wife were only children, it seems.’

‘So we can rule out the possibility of the murderer being a family member, then?’

‘Pretty effectively, yes. Anyway, it’s doubtful that one of Glossop’s family members would have killed the bishop.’

‘Was Glossop Anglican?’

‘No, he and Charlotte were married at Brunswick Baptist Church in Gloucester before moving to London.’

‘How did he know the bishop, then?’

‘That, my dear John, is an excellent question.’ And one, John guessed, that was going to take several hours of trudging around London to answer.

 

He was quite right about that. It was raining that day, as it tended to do rather often in London, and consequently there were fewer people on the streets than there had been the previous day. The people that were out and about were huddled under umbrellas and hurrying on their ways, a fast and silent flow of people just like the flow of raindrops down the windows of the nearby buildings. Rain was as commonplace in London, and as much an iconic part of it, as cabs and phone boxes and Big Ben, but the last couple of days had been uncharacteristically sunny, and John found the return of the rain somewhat depressing.

Sherlock, on the other hand, didn’t seem bothered by it in the least. He was carrying a black umbrella, probably more to protect his coat than anything, and hurrying along at as quick a pace as ever. John was trying to keep up with him so they could share the umbrella - Sherlock had broken John’s last week in an exploit John had been trying not to think about - but he wasn’t making it easy.

‘Wait up,’ John said finally, after he nearly tripped for at least the fourth time trying to stay dry.

Sherlock didn’t slow down. ‘St Jude’s Hospital, John. What do you know about it?’

‘Erm...it’s a hospital? In London?’

‘Oh come now, you’re a doctor, surely you know more than that.’

He didn’t really. He’d only ever worked in small London practises, never a hospital, and whenever Sherlock had any lab work to do they went to St Bart’s since that was where Molly worked. He knew no more about St Jude’s than the average citizen. ‘I think they do a lot of medical research there,’ he ventured.

‘Good. And...?’

John thought hard. ‘You mentioned it earlier,’ he realised in a sudden flash. ‘You said Glossop was on the Board of Governors there.’

‘I did indeed.’

‘So we’re going to St Jude’s Hospital to talk to the other governors about Glossop.’

‘Very good, John! I’ll make a detective of you yet.’

John was fairly certain that was an insult, but he let it slide this time. ‘How long of a walk is it?’ he asked instead, apprehensively.

‘Not long.’ Because that was ever so reassuring.

‘Not long as in five minutes, or not long as in five miles?’

‘Not long.’

It turned out to be not long as in only about halfway across London in the pouring rain, and by the time they got to St Jude’s John was soaking wet and wishing he hadn’t worn a woolen jumper this morning. And sneezing. He was fully expecting to catch a cold because of this. Well, at least it would give him an excuse to sleep in.

Sherlock, on the other hand, was as dry as the Sahara Desert in the middle of July. Not even his hair was wet. Not even a little bit. ‘Next time,’ John told him as they stepped through the doors into the lobby of the hospital, ‘I am holding the umbrella.’

‘You could just use your own umbrella.’

‘I _would_ ,’ John said heatedly, ‘if you hadn’t _broken_ it on your last case. Didn’t your parents ever tell you not to use an umbrella as a parachute?’

‘Actually, no,’ he replied.

‘Well, you should never use an umbrella as a parachute. You’re not Mary Poppins, Sherlock.’

‘Mary who?’

John stood there and blinked at him for a second. ‘Mary...Poppins. You know, the nanny with the umbrella and the bottomless carpet bag and supercalifragilisticexpialidocious and the spoonful of...no? Nothing?’ Sherlock was giving him a look that meant he was wondering if perhaps the stress of their lifestyle had gotten to be too much and John had finally snapped. ‘Right, we are definitely watching Mary Poppins tonight.’ Sherlock stared at John for a moment longer, then shook his head, giving up on him, and walked off across the lobby.

It was a typical hospital lobby, as such things went - blonde receptionist behind a desk at one end of the tile-floored room, plastic chairs that seemed to be specifically designed to be as uncomfortable as possible occupied by pale-faced people, pitchers of a tar-flavoured substance that called itself coffee on a counter next to stacks of disposable insulated cups. Mercifully, the heat was on, and John could feel himself starting to dry off. There were only two people waiting at the moment, an elderly man with sad eyes set deep in his wrinkled face and a very nervous looking teenage girl. John tried to smile at them both as he followed Sherlock, who was ignoring them, to the front desk.

‘Hello,’ said the receptionist - her nameplate read “Megan” - in an obnoxiously bright tone of voice. ‘How may I help you?’

Sherlock got right down to business. ‘I need to speak with the board of governors.’

Megan frowned. ‘I’m afraid you can’t do that, sir, they’re not in session right now.’

‘When will they be in session?’

‘Thursday afternoon.’

It was Sherlock’s turn to frown now. ‘Is there any way I could speak with them sooner? This is very important.’

‘Well... I suppose you could try to contact them separately,’ Megan suggested hesitantly.

‘Ah, that might work. How would I go about doing that?’

‘I can get you a list of their names and contact information if you’d like.’

‘That would be excellent, thank you.’ He was being shockingly polite. It seemed the murder-induced good mood hadn’t quite worn off yet.

Megan the receptionist pulled the names and contact information up on her computer and had them printed out for Sherlock within a couple of minutes. Sherlock turned to leave. John wasn’t exactly eager to go back out in the rain, but he was dripping all over the tile floor - they were probably going to have to get someone with a mop in here to get rid of the puddle before someone slipped on it and broke their neck. Although of all the places you could break your neck, a hospital lobby was probably a pretty good choice.

‘Can we please get a cab home?’ John asked Sherlock as they stepped out into the dreary afternoon.

‘What, is your leg bothering you?’ He was teasing. John had half a mind to smack him for it.

‘If I say yes, will you believe me?’

‘No.’

Well, it was worth a shot. ‘Okay, so my leg is fine. But I am going to catch my death if I have to walk home in this weather.’

‘Plenty of men with weaker constitutions than yours have walked through London in the rain and survived.’ He kept walking, showing no intention of hailing a cab.

‘Maybe, but I’m sure there are some who have caught pneumonia and died!’

‘Very few compared to the multitudes who have lived.’

‘You forget I still haven’t fully recovered from my time in Afghanistan.’

He actually laughed at that, a deep chuckle. ‘Oh please. You’ve recovered enough to come on all of my cases with me. I think you can handle a little walk in the rain.’

‘You don’t know that.’

‘The odds of you getting deathly ill are very slim.’

‘I’m an unlucky man.’

‘I beg to differ.’ That took John by surprise, and he couldn’t help glancing at Sherlock, waiting for him to elaborate on that statement. But he didn’t and so, puzzled, John just kept following him.

 

They made it home, finally, after a very long, very wet walk. About halfway through they had a small tussle over the umbrella, which John won, and consequently he didn’t get any wetter than he already was. Which was soaking wet and dripping, so the umbrella didn’t do much, but at least it meant Sherlock had to spend the rest of the walk getting rained on. He refused to stoop down to John’s height to get under the umbrella despite the fact that it was only a less than fifteen centimetre difference, so by the time they got back to the flat, his curly dark hair was plastered to the sides of his angular face. His coat, on the other hand, seemed to wick away the water like a duck.

As soon as they got inside the flat, Sherlock grabbed a towel and dried his hair while John shook the umbrella off and left it out to dry. He ended up with spikes of hair sticking up all over the place, making him look like a kid who had just gotten out of bed. John stifled a laugh, and Sherlock gave him his best wounded puppy look. ‘What?’

‘Your hair...’ And John burst into laughter.

‘What’s wrong with my hair?’

John pointed to the mirror, laughing too hard to answer. Sherlock turned, stared at his reflection for a moment, then tried to flatten out the mess of hair. He wasn’t having much success. Still laughing, John said, ‘There’s such a thing as a brush, Sherlock.’

He continued trying in vain to get his hair to cooperate. Finally he either gave up on it or determined it to have been fixed and sank into his armchair. John took a detour on his way to the shower to try and flatten it out himself, with little success. ‘Seriously. Brush,’ he told Sherlock. He looked at John expectantly. John rolled his eyes but when he got to the bathroom he chucked one out to his flatmate.

There was a clattering sound, and then Sherlock called out indignantly, ‘You almost hit Yorick!’

John was still laughing as he got into the shower.

 

When he emerged twenty minutes later, he felt significantly less chilled and wet, although he was still fairly certain he had a cold coming on. Sherlock had managed to coax his hair into a much less comical state, which was both relieving and disappointing, because it was the only source of humour John had had all day. He was holding his phone and looking somewhat irritated.

‘They won’t answer their phones,’ he said. ‘Four remaining governors, and none of them will pick up their phones. I even tried the secretary.’

‘Well, Sherlock, it is six thirty on a Tuesday evening. They’re probably eating dinner like normal people.’ John paused as Sherlock’s words sank in. ‘Sorry, did you say four remaining governors?’

‘I did. General Lord Glossop and the Bishop of Basingstoke were both members of the Board of Governors at St Jude’s Hospital.’

John’s eyes widened, and he picked up the list from the hospital, which Sherlock had left sitting on the coffee table. ‘So...you think it’s somebody with a grudge against the hospital?’

‘That does seem the most likely explanation.’ He dropped his phone with a sigh. ‘I need tea.’

‘Then go make some. And while you’re at it, make me some too.’ John thought about that for a moment. ‘On second thought...I’ll do it.’

‘Thanks.’

He wasn’t quite sure that trying to save his own skin from Sherlock’s tea quite deserved a thank you, but if Sherlock wanted to thank him, John wasn’t going to object. He went and made tea, continuing to ignore the shoddy state of the kitchen. It actually looked significantly cleaner now than it had this morning; the dishes had been done and the floor swept, though Sherlock’s science experiments were still untouched. Mrs Hudson must have been up while he and Sherlock were traipsing around London in the rain. John would have preferred her job today.

He brought Sherlock out his tea. ‘Did you have any plans for tonight?’ John asked him.

‘Not unless one of the governors happens to call me back.’

‘Great.’ John sank down in his armchair with a happy sigh and sipped his tea. ‘Then we’re watching Mary Poppins.’

Sherlock made a face that plainly said he’d been hoping John had forgotten about that. ‘Do we have to?’

‘Yes we have to. It’s a classic; I can’t believe you grew up in England and haven’t seen it.’

‘Yes. Well, my childhood was somewhat...less than typical.’

That was true enough, John supposed. He and Mycroft certainly made it sound like it had been a challenge. ‘We’ll make up for that now, then. Because there is no way you can call yourself a proper British citizen if you haven’t seen Mary Poppins.’

‘I’ve gotten along fine without it until now, I see no reason why it is suddenly an issue.’

‘You do not have a say in this matter. We are watching Mary Poppins and that is that.’

So they did. They weren’t even fifteen minutes in before Sherlock said, ‘It is impossible to jump into chalk drawings.’

‘It’s a children’s movie.’

‘I am not a child.’ John could have argued with that, but he chose not to. ‘In any case, what sort of a children’s movie is this? It deludes them as to what reality is actually like.’

‘It fuels their imaginations,’ John countered. Sherlock made a derisive sound that might have been a snort but was silent. For a while.

‘Physics decrees that that carpet bag is impossible.’

‘Sherlock! I know! Shut up and watch the bloody movie!’

It went on like that for another hour and a half. Mary Poppins had been one of John’s favourite movies when he was a kid, and in fact he still enjoyed watching it on occasion, but somehow Sherlock managed to make it less than enjoyable. It probably had something to do with the fact that every time something was logically impossible, he felt the need to comment on it. That, or deduce things about the characters that allowed him to guess the outcome of the entire movie within the first few minutes. When it was finally over, he had a disgusted look on his face. ‘That was an incredible waste of an hour and a half.’

‘ _That_ ,’ John protested, ‘is one of the finest movies ever made, and a huge popular culture icon.’

‘I don’t care about popular culture.’

Exasperated, John stood up and headed for his bedroom. ‘One of these days,’ he said over his shoulder, ‘you’re going to have a case that involves Mary Poppins, and then you’ll thank me.’ And with that, he shut himself in his room to try and get some sleep.


	5. Chapter Five

John was definitely getting a cold. He woke up the next morning with a stuffy nose and a scratchy voice, and he was not happy about it in the least. Sherlock was sitting in his armchair with the paper as usual when John joined him in the sitting room. ‘Good morning, John.’

‘Morning.’

He looked up. ‘Your voice sounds hoarse. You’re getting sick, aren’t you.’

‘Thanks to your rainy day excursion, yes, as a matter of fact, I am.’ John sounded grouchy and he knew it, but he thought he deserved to be a little bit grouchy after yesterday’s outing. ‘What’s the plan for today?’

‘Talking to the members of the board of governors. If they won’t answer their phones, we will just have to find out where they live.’

John groaned. ‘Please no more walking.’

‘Walking builds character.’

‘I think I built enough character shooting people in Afghanistan, don’t you?’

Sherlock shrugged. ‘A little more character never hurts.’

‘It’s going to hurt you when one of these days I get fed up with you trying to build mine.’

‘I wish you the best of luck with that.’

‘Thanks. Seriously, though, can we please take a cab?’

Something in John’s voice must have made Sherlock give in, or perhaps he just didn’t want to walk that much either, because he said, ‘I suppose we can build our characters another day.’

‘ _Thank_ you.’ Sherlock set the paper down, and John picked it up right as Sherlock’s phone vibrated. It was still on the floor where he’d dropped it in his frustration the night before. He ignored it. ‘Aren’t you going to answer that?’

Sherlock gestured to it. ‘Be my guest.’

John sighed heavily but leaned over and picked it up. ‘It’s Lestrade.’

‘Mm.’

Obviously he didn’t care enough to answer it, so John did. ‘Hello?’

‘John?’ Lestrade sounded perplexed. ‘Why are you answering Sherlock’s phone?’

‘Because he was too lazy to. What do you need?’

‘There’s been another murder.’

‘What? Another one? But there was just one yesterday!’

Sherlock perked up immediately at that. ‘Another murder?’ he asked. John nodded. Sherlock grinned and rubbed his hands together; John shot him a disapproving look.

‘Yeah, well, our killer’s been busy,’ Lestrade said grimly.

‘Are we sure it’s the same one?’

‘I was assuming so, but I don’t know.’

‘Who was the victim?’ Sherlock asked, suddenly very engaged in the conversation. John held out the phone to him, and he took it and repeated his question. Lestrade said something, and Sherlock replied, ‘They weren’t killed by the same person. ...Yes, yes, of course. Where is he? ...Yes, we’ll be right over.’ He sounded slightly irritated, but it didn’t show in his face as he hung up. ‘Another murder, John!’

‘Not the same murderer, though?’

‘No.’

‘How could you tell? You haven’t even seen the crime scene yet.’

‘I didn’t need to. The man killed was not a member of the board of governors.’ He got up and went to get dressed.

‘Sorry, what?’ John asked. Sherlock paused in his doorway.

‘You heard me right. The murderer is killing the members of the board of governors at St Jude’s Hospital one by one.’ And with that remark, he slammed the door.

John went and got dressed himself, and when he came out Sherlock was waiting for him. ‘We’re going to the crime scene,’ he informed John when John shot an inquiring look at his coat. ‘Don’t worry, it isn’t raining today.’

‘I thought you didn’t need to see the crime scene to know who the murderer was?’

‘I said I knew this wasn’t the same murderer as the last two, not that I knew who he was. The crime scene could still hold many valuable clues. You might want a coat, it looks a bit chilly out.’

John grabbed his coat and followed Sherlock out onto the street. True to his friend’s word, they did take a cab this time, for which John was quite grateful. ‘So,’ John asked Sherlock as they headed to the neighbourhood where the body was, ‘how did you figure that the murderer is killing off everyone on the board of governors?’

‘Two murders in the last four days, both of upstanding members of society. They aren’t random murders against the upper class like some of those people at the funeral were suggesting; the two men who were killed knew each other. The only connection was that they were both on the board of governors at St Jude’s, which means the killer is someone with a grudge against the hospital, which means that there will most likely be another victim from the board.’

‘If that’s the case, why are we out here investigating an unrelated murder instead of leaving it to Lestrade to solve?’

‘The sooner we clear this one up, the sooner we can get back on the track of the actual murderer. If we leave this one unsolved for too long, he’ll start thinking he can do whatever he wants because we’re looking for the wrong man.’

‘And in the meantime, he could kill again.’

‘Yes, wouldn’t that be fabulous!’

‘Sherlock.’ John’s tone was sharp.

‘Wrong reaction?’

‘Definitely.’

He didn’t apologise. Not that John expected him to.

When they got to the crime scene, Lestrade was standing behind the line of yellow police tape sipping coffee out of a disposable cup. John could swear his hair had more grey in it than it had had this time last week. ‘They’re dropping like flies,’ John said by way of greeting, trying for levity. It fell flat. Lestrade’s face was strained with an expression that clearly stated that if there was never another murder in his city it would be too soon. John wondered why this particular case was taking such a toll on him; murders were his division and usually he handled them quite well.

‘More trouble with your wife, Lestrade?’ Sherlock asked as he joined John and Lestrade. Ah. So that was why. It wasn’t this case at all.

‘That,’ Lestrade said forcefully, ‘is none of your business.’

‘She’s not really willing to try again with you, you know,’ Sherlock said mildly. ‘She’s only saying that to get more money from you.’

‘Drop it, Sherlock,’ John said with a meaningful look. Fortunately at that moment Sherlock noticed the body sprawled out behind Lestrade and all thoughts of the poor man’s marital issues were put aside.

‘Time of death?’ Sherlock asked, all business.

‘Seven twenty seven pm last night.’

‘And he was only found this morning?’ John asked incredulously.

‘Well, it is a back street.’

Sherlock had knelt down and was examining the body. Lestrade and John both watched him, wondering what he was going to come up with this time. After a moment he stood up and said, ‘The murderer is the boyfriend, possibly fiance but I doubt it, of a young clerk at Lloyds Banking Group.’

Lestrade and John just blinked at him for a moment, and then John asked, ‘How on earth did you know that?’

‘The creases in his pants suggest that his job involved a lot of sitting, and his shoes are worn more on the inside of the sole, indicating bad arches. Now he’s wearing an expensive suit, so he certainly had the money to buy insoles if he needed them, but he didn’t, which means he didn’t do a lot of standing or walking in his job. An office job, then. There are indents in the sides of his nose from glasses, which he is not wearing now, though he is also not wearing contacts; the indents are probably from reading glasses. There are none of the telltale signs of frequent computer use; on the contrary, there is a callus on the inside of his right middle finger which not only tells us that he was right handed but also that he used a pen often. The signature on his credit card is indistinct, suggesting that he signed his name frequently. An office job that involves a frequent signature and minimal computer use is probably banking. Of course, there are several other jobs it could be, but banker is the most likely. You follow so far?’

Lestrade and John, a bit shell-shocked, nodded. Sherlock’s deductions never got less impressive no matter how often they heard him make them. It didn’t help that he talked faster than a squirrel on caffeine, either.

‘Good. Now, the banker’s suit is expensive but not new; in fact, it’s a bit worn, indicating he had a steady source of income when he bought the suit but somewhere along the line he lost that source of income and hasn’t been able to buy a new suit or get this one repaired despite the small hole in the elbow. He was fired a few weeks ago, then. Now, what can get a high ranking banker fired? A scandal, of course. He’s not wearing his wedding ring, but there is a distinct indent and tan line where one would have been; also, the house key he’s carrying has only been used a few times, indicating that he recently changed houses. His wife divorced him and made him move out within the last couple of weeks.  There are at least five different scenarios that could have caused this, but the most likely is that he was cheating with a younger, prettier woman, an attendant at the bank. That would have gotten him divorced as well as fired.

‘Now, the murder! It didn’t stop raining last night until around seven, which means there was plenty of mud for the murderer and his victim to leave footprints in. The murderer walked up the alleyway from the end opposite this street’ - he pointed - ‘and stopped in that doorway there to wait for the banker to come along. He knew the banker would come this way, which means he was watching his victim for a while before the murder, which means it was premeditated. Now our banker was on his way back from withdrawing  money from the bank he used to work at; there is more money in his wallet than the average person carries with them. All of his money would still have been in his checking account there, so he wouldn’t have been able to avoid using that bank, but he went as close to closing time as he possibly could and took back streets to get there to eliminate the chance of suffering the embarrassment of running into someone he knew. The murderer saw him, accosted him, most likely spoke to him - the footprints indicate they stood together for some time - and then killed him. He was killed by a blow to the neck with a long, solid wooden object.’

‘Like a walking stick?’ John suggested.

‘Like a walking stick,’ Sherlock agreed, ‘but not in this case. In this case it was a shovel.’

Lestrade stared at him incredulously. ‘A shovel.’

‘Yes. In fact...’ Sherlock walked into the alley, reached into a doorway from which a broom and a rake were sticking out, and grabbed a shovel, which he showed John and Lestrade. ‘This shovel.’

It certainly looked like a shovel that was capable of committing murder. There were dents and nicks in the wooden handle, and the metal head had some sort of dried brown spots on it that could have been mud...or blood. John shook that thought off. There was no blood on the body, which meant it was mud. All these murder cases were making him morbid.

It still wasn’t a friendly looking shovel, though.

‘So how did you know the murderer was the bank girl’s boyfriend?’ John asked, partly because he wanted to know and partly because he wanted to stop thinking about how many other people the shovel might have killed.

‘It was the only logical reason the murderer would have wanted to kill him. Well, it could have been a business deal gone wrong, or a relative of the wife’s that was angry about the cheating, but when a pretty young girl is involved, odds are the motive was jealousy. The murderer was dating the girl at the bank, and then our banker here comes along and steals her away. The young man, enraged, plots to kill the banker. If he just goes out and snuffs the man, though, the suspicion will fall on him. For a while he debates with himself - to kill the banker, or not to kill the banker? And then along comes our serial killer with the walking stick, and the young man sees his opportunity. As long as it looks like the banker was killed with a walking stick, the police force will automatically assume it was the same man who killed the bishop and the general. The true murderer gets away with the crime while another man hangs for it. Clever.’

John shot him a look, which he either didn’t see or chose to ignore. ‘All we’ve got to do is find this girl and figure out who she was dating, then?’ Lestrade asked.

‘Exactly,’ Sherlock said. He grinned. ‘Let’s go to the bank, shall we?’

 

John’s head was still reeling from Sherlock’s string of deductions as he, Lestrade, and Sherlock walked into Lloyd’s Banking Group. They’d just opened for the morning, and the huge, imposing lobby was almost completely empty except for the few attendants who were drinking coffee behind their nameplates and the suited businessmen reclining in leather chairs in their offices.

Sherlock apparently had a plan, because he walked up to one of the attendants quite confidently and said, ‘Good morning.’

‘Good morning, sir,’ said the attendant, a young brunette in a pink skirt and blouse, ‘how may I help you?’

‘I’m looking for a Mr David Lafarge,’ Sherlock said. ‘Do you happen to know which office is his?’

The girl’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Mr Lafarge doesn’t work here anymore,’ she informed him. ‘Is there something I can do for you instead?’

‘I’m sorry, I need to speak to Mr Lafarge himself. Do you know how I can contact him at his house?’

‘I’m afraid I don’t.’ She paused, biting her lip in indecision. ‘Laura might, though.’

‘Laura?’ Even John could deduce that that would be the girl he’d gotten fired over, but Sherlock played dumb. John wondered if it pained him.

‘She’s right over there.’ The attendant pointed to a girl a couple counters down. Sherlock thanked her, and they went to go talk to Laura.

‘You’re Laura?’ Sherlock asked. She looked up, surprised, and nodded. ‘One of the other girls said you might be able to help me.’

‘It’s possible,’ she said. ‘What do you need help with?’

‘I’m looking for Mr David Lafarge.’

A look of shock crossed her face, followed closely by pain, and then she chased both away with a false smile, all in the space of an instant. But John saw it, and he knew Sherlock did too. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know who you’re talking about.’

Sherlock let his  face fall. ‘That’s too bad, I was really hoping I would be able to talk to him today.’ Then he brightened a little, leaning forward a little over the counter and putting out a thin hand to touch one of the bright blue earrings dangling from her ears. ‘Are these turquoise?’ She seemed a little startled at his touch, but nodded. The earring moved beneath Sherlock’s finger. ‘They match your eyes.’

A deep crimson blush spread over her face as a new voice said, ‘Hey, you! Quit flirting with my girlfriend.’ Sherlock pulled back his hand, and all four people turned to see a young man walking toward them carrying two cups of coffee. His voice was light, but there was a hint of a deeper, much more serious protectiveness to it. ‘Here, Laura,’ he said, handing her one of the cups. ‘I bought you a mocha.’

‘Thanks, Brad,’ Laura said, blushing a little deeper.

‘Brad, is it?’ Sherlock was looking the new arrival up and down as if checking to see if he matched his mental image of the murderer. He didn’t at all match John’s, but then what did he know. ‘I’m Sherlock Holmes.’ He stuck out his hand, which Brad, confused, shook. Sherlock gave Lestrade a tiny nod and, holding tightly to Brad’s hand, said, ‘Pleased to meet you.’ In a lightning fast move, Lestrade fastened a handcuff on Brad’s wrist. ‘You are under arrest for the murder of David Lafarge.’

Laura lunged forward over the counter. Her elbow hit the coffee cup and it toppled over, splattering mocha all over the clean tile floor. Nobody but John seemed to notice. ‘There must be some mistake,’ she said desperately. ‘Brad didn’t - he wouldn’t - Brad-?’ There was a look of broken horror on her face, and John felt terrible for ruining her morning like this. One moment she’s being flirted with by an attractive detective and her boyfriend is bringing her coffee, and the next her boyfriend is being arrested for murdering her other boyfriend. That had to be a little awkward for the poor girl.

Brad didn’t struggle, though he looked like he might have considered it if Laura hadn’t been there. ‘I’m sorry, Laura,’ he said in a defeated voice. ‘There’s no mistake.’ He turned away from her horrified look. ‘Yes, I killed him,’ he spat at Sherlock with sudden fire. ‘I killed the filthy little cheater for taking my girl. I was going to propose to her and then I found out that he had been sleeping with her.’

‘Brad...’ Laura looked devastated. There were tears streaming down her cheeks. ‘You didn’t have to _kill_ him!’

Sensible girl, this Laura. She took the words right out of John’s mouth.

‘We’re going to have to take you in,’ Lestrade told Brad as he and twisted his arms behind his back fastened the other handcuff to Brad’s other wrist. ‘You have the right to remain silent and all of that.’

‘Brad...’ Laura said again. She looked really torn up. John didn’t blame her. On an impulse, he reached out and patted her hand.

‘I’m sorry, Laura. Really I am.’ Brad only looked a little sorry.

‘You wouldn’t have to be sorry if you just hadn’t killed him in the first place!’ Laura shouted at him. A couple of the other attendants turned their heads to look at us. John gave them the wan sort of smile that he hoped said “nothing to see here, move along.” Although a handcuffed man getting screamed at by a crying girl in the middle of a bank was pretty much the definition of “something to see.”

Sherlock looked disgusted. ‘That’s the end of their relationship, then.’

John elbowed him in the ribs. ‘Sherlock. Have a little pity.’

‘Sorry, John. I don’t do pity.’

‘You should try it sometime. It’s lovely.’

‘I think I’ll leave it to you, actually.’

And that was pretty much life with Sherlock in a nutshell.

Lestrade led the handcuffed Brad out of the bank. John stayed behind a moment longer to try and comfort Laura, but Sherlock was eager to leave. As they reached the front door, Sherlock turned to face all the shocked, staring eyes and said, ‘Someone ought to clean that up.’  He waved his hand in the general direction of the spilled coffee, and John wasn’t sure if he was gesturing at the spill or at the crying girl who was staring at it as though it was a metaphor for her life.

Sadly, it kind of was.

 

Lestrade took Brad down to New Scotland Yard, and suddenly Sherlock and John were left with nothing to do. Sherlock had solved in less than an hour a case that would have taken Lestrade and his men days to solve on their own.

‘Anything else we can do on the serial murder case?’ John asked as they watched the police car drive off.

Sherlock shook his head. ‘Not until one of those governors calls us back.’ He sounded like the waiting was driving him mad. This morning’s murder had been a nice distraction, but it had been over all too quickly and now he needed a new one.

‘We should go get lunch, then.’

‘Food.’ He sounded like the very idea repelled him. ‘It’s always food with you, John.’

‘Yeah. I am, in fact, human, and we do need to eat. Come on. That little cafe you like is just down the street. We’ll get the window seat, and you can watch people...’

‘Fine,’ he gave in. ‘But you’re paying.’

It was a small price to pay for keeping Sherlock somewhat amused until there was a development on the case, so John agreed, and a few minutes later they were sitting in the window seat of the cafe. They chatted about nothing in particular over lunch, and Sherlock showed off by telling John everything he could about every single person that walked by until John got fed up and had to tell him to shut it. All in all, a perfectly normal afternoon with Sherlock. It was nice, really, having a small reprieve from the dead bodies and shovels of death and crying women that seemed to follow Sherlock around like lost kittens. Well, the women didn’t exactly follow Sherlock; they followed the bodies which followed Sherlock. John wasn’t entirely sure where the shovel fit in that progression.

After lunch they walked home. The weather was considerably nicer than it had been the previous day, and they were both in much higher spirits despite the lack of new information on the case. Mrs Hudson caught them before they could get upstairs and demanded they clean up a bit because she wasn’t their housekeeper and she wasn’t going to do it. Sherlock and John shared a smile over that but agreed to do some cleaning anyway. It wasn’t like they had anything better to do - Sherlock had made it painfully obvious that movie nights were out of the question - and anyway it was high time the flat stopped looking like a tornado had hit it.

So they spent the rest of the afternoon picking up various useless items that were laying around the flat, doing dishes and laundry, removing some of the knives from the mantelpiece, and other general housekeeping items. It was Thursday now, which meant it was past time to throw out the eyeballs, and John did so with great relish. Mrs Hudson came up at one point to return Sherlock’s favourite blue scarf, which she’d been mending after it had lost a little dispute with the furniture last week, and ended up staying to help them with the dusting and cleaning the windows. Why John had thought two men would be able to take care of the housework was beyond him, and he made sure to tell Mrs Hudson several times that he didn’t know what they’d do without her.

When the flat had been cleaned to Mrs Hudson’s satisfaction - in other words, far cleaner than Sherlock or John would ever have left it - John sent Sherlock out to get milk, jam, and various other groceries they needed. He wasn’t happy about it, but it was his turn anyway, so he went. In the meantime John made himself some tea, took a Nyquil for his cold, which the dusting hadn’t helped, and sat down with his laptop. He updated my blog, writing out Sherlock’s incredible deductions and the subsequent arrest of Brad the murderous coffee-bearing boyfriend, and by the time Sherlock got back with the groceries John was half-asleep in his chair. He could hear Sherlock banging around in the kitchen, putting things away, and then his voice saying, ‘I got that jam you like.’ He came out of the kitchen, took one look at his flatmate, and said, ‘John, you look terrible. Go get some sleep.’

‘Mkay.’ John was far too tired to argue with him; the Nyquil was making him drowsy and he was only a few minutes away from falling completely asleep.

Sherlock picked the laptop up, closed it, and set it on the coffee table. ‘Go on.’

John got up, shaking his head to try and wake up a bit, and went to his bedroom, where he collapsed on his bed. Sherlock followed him, turning out the light in his room and closing the door behind him. ‘Thanks,’ John mumbled, already more asleep than awake.

Sherlock laughed. ‘Goodnight, John.’

John mumbled something back that might have been ‘Night’ but was more likely ‘Mmmrg’ and fell asleep.

 

* * * * *

 

_The three of them left the club together. Laughter and music spilled out of the open door onto the dark street as they half walked, half tumbled out. Then the door slammed shut behind them and they were alone._

_‘I am bored gutless with these damn charity dinners, Archie!’ the woman said, laughing like she had had one too many glasses of wine that evening, which she had. She was wearing an elaborate, low cut evening gown with multiple pink layers of silk and lace, and a flashy string of diamonds was around her neck. It caught and refracted the light from the streetlamps, making it look as if the stars had fallen to earth._

_‘Then why do you go to them?’ her companion - Archie - replied, also laughing. Also intoxicated._

_‘Because I like to see my name in the Tattler!’ the woman replied, and the two of them burst into a fit of drunken laughter. Their third companion, another man, cracked a smile but seemed altogether less relaxed than the two of them. Perhaps he had had less to drink._

_‘Well, I for one agree with you, Bessie,’ Archie said when he stopped laughing. ‘Damn all charities and damn all good causes!’ That set the two of them off again into spasms of raucous laughter, and they were falling all over each other laughing at their joke._

_‘Well, well, well,’ said an ominous voice as a man detached himself from the shadows. Archie and Bessie started, their laughter dying as they saw him. He was short, with features that had a certain unpleasantness to them despite having no obvious malformation, and his whole persona gave off such an air of evil that Archie and Bessie, despite their drunken state, backed away intuitively. He was swinging a walking stick. ‘If it isn’t faith, hope, and chastity!’_

_‘Be on your way, man,’ Archie said, gesturing vaguely at the new arrival. ‘Off with you!’ The man responded by jabbing the end of his stick square into Archie’s chest. ‘Damned insolence,’ Archie spluttered. ‘I’ll have you arrested!’ He grabbed the stick and pulled on it, shaking it back and forth as though trying to wrest it from his assailant’s grasp. To his surprise, the stick itself came off in his hands, leaving the other man holding a long, thin sword. Archie, unbalanced, stumbled backwards toward the stairs._

_‘The only thing arrested here is your intelligence,’ the other man replied as though nothing had happened._

_Archie was becoming livid. He advanced on the other man. ‘This is my final admonition!’_

_The other man’s voice lost all of its conversational quality as he said, ‘And this is mine.’ With a fierce and frightening smile, he flicked his wrist upwards and thrust the blade forward. ‘Hypocrite!’ The blade slid easily through Archie’s forehead. The expression on the man’s face changed from one of slight annoyance to one of shock and then, an instant later, one of excruciating pain. He cried out, and then with a savage twist his killer turned the blade one hundred eighty degrees and pulled it back. Archie collapsed onto the stairs in front of the club with gouts of blood streaming down his face. Little rivulets trickled down the stairs and dripped onto the sidewalk._

_The man didn’t give his victim a second glance, turning instead to Bessie and the other man, who were watching in stunned silence. The other man was gaping at the murderer, almost as though he recognised him. ‘Now let’s have a closer look at you, you despicable drunken hag,’ he said, touching the very point of his sword to the neckline of Bessie’s dress. The woman gasped in shock, her fast, fearful breaths moving the sword point up and down. It pricked her, and a little trickle of blood ran down her skin, staining the front of her dress. She was staring at him with wide, terrified eyes, silently begging for her life. He pulled his sword up and back, scratching a line up toward her collarbone as he did so. She dropped to her knees in relief, not seeming to feel the small wound. Picking up the other half of his stick from the ground where Archie had dropped it, the man sheathed the blade and advanced on her. There was a single tear running down her powdered cheek and a small whimper escaped her mouth with each breath._

_In a sudden, fierce movement, the man grabbed hold of her diamond necklace. She cried out, but the sound was cut off as the man jerked the necklace backwards. The chain cut a deep line into the skin of her neck. ‘Bessie, my love, you really should be more careful wearing your real diamonds out on the street,’ the man said, his voice a smooth growl. ‘You never know whom you might encounter.’ Bessie’s hands flew to her throat, her painted fingernails scrabbling against the man’s rough, gnarled hands. With each moment that he continued to choke her, her eyes grew wider and her movements more desperate. The man laughed. ‘As I’m sure in your will you’ve made sure to leave everything to yourself in Hades,’ he began quite conversationally, as if he was watching a movie instead of a woman’s life fading away before his eyes, ‘I’ll make a donation of these’ - he gave the necklace another savage jerk, causing her to emit a strangled whine - ‘to charity in your name.’ He tugged on the diamond necklace one final time. Bessie breathed one last tortured breath before going limp and collapsing backwards onto the ground._

_Her murderer was still gripping the necklace, causing her lifeless body to hang in an odd way, her limbs splayed out and her head tipped backwards at what would have been an uncomfortable angle if she had been able to feel it. Without letting go, the man turned to grin at the companion of the two victims, who was standing by with a horrified look on his deathly pale face. He looked as if he was expecting to be next. The man made no move to hurt him, however, just crouched on the ground like a predatory animal over his dinner and grinned up at the other man. The surviving man turned and ran, sprinting off into the darkness so quickly that he nearly tripped over his own feet._

_ The killer watched him go, then tore the necklace from Bessie’s neck, breaking the chain. He surveyed his handiwork for a brief moment and let out a little chuckle, then turned and seemed to notice something else. A beggar was sitting cross legged in the alleyway, a young woman with dirty and torn clothing covering too-thin arms and knees. She must have seen what had just transpired, but unlike the three upper class citizens the man had just encountered, she was watching with interest instead of fear. She probably saw things like this on a daily basis. The man watched her for a moment, then with a tiny movement he threw her the dead woman’s diamond necklace. She snagged it out of the air. ‘A gift for you from the late Lady Beaconsfield,’ he said, and strode off into the darkness from whence he came, leaving the beggar woman to admire her new jewels. _


	6. Chapter Six

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the chapter where things start to get weird with time periods clashing; some of the details don't transfer so well to the 21st century but I needed to keep them for Sherlock to make some of his deductions. Let's just pretend it all works, okay? Good. :)  
> That aside, this is also one of my favourite chapters because it introduces the OC I'm particularly fond of, so I hope you guys enjoy it too!

John was still feeling the effects of the Nyquil when he stumbled out into the sitting room the next morning.  Yawning and rubbing his eyes, he collapsed into his armchair. That was when he saw Sherlock.

He was standing in the doorway, holding an umbrella in front of him the way Mycroft had a tendency to do. For a moment, John’s sleepy mind thought he _was_ Mycroft, but his curly dark hair was impossible to mistake. ‘What in the name of all that is good in this world,’ John asked, ‘is that?’

‘It’s an umbrella,’ Sherlock answered, ‘I bought an umbrella.’

‘Why? Are you trying to be more like Mycroft? Did Mary Poppins inspire you after all?’

‘I bought you an umbrella. Since I broke your other one.’

John was speechless for a moment. Most of the time he wasn’t quite sure Sherlock was really human, but then he did things like this that reminded John that his friend was, in fact, very human. ‘Right,’ John said finally. ‘Don’t break this one, okay?’ He didn’t say thanks. Saying thanks would have implied that Sherlock had done something human and nice, and that would just have made it very awkward. John didn’t have to say it for Sherlock  to know he meant it.

‘I won’t,’ Sherlock assured John. Then, leaving the umbrella propped up against the wall in the entryway, he disappeared into the kitchen.

John was just about to pick up the newspaper when his phone buzzed. He grabbed it off the arm of the chair and answered it without checking to see who it was; given the events of the last few days, he had a pretty good idea already. ‘Don’t tell me there’s been another one,’ he said wearily.

‘Two,’ Lestrade answered grimly.

‘ _Two_?!’

‘Yes. They were found this morning by a postman on Dover Street, in Mayfair.’

‘Mayfair? So we have some rich victims, then.’ John was becoming almost as desensitised to murder as Sherlock himself.

‘Indeed we do. How soon can you get Sherlock down here?’

‘Less than half an hour, I’d guess.’

‘Great, thanks.’ He sighed. ‘I’m hoping this is the last of these murders. London’s going to be in an uproar when these hit the press; they’ve barely had a chance to get over General Glossop’s murder.’

‘If we can catch him soon, these will be the last,’ John replied. ‘See you soon.’

‘Yup. Thanks, John.’

‘Anytime.’ He hung up and, with a massive sigh, headed into the kitchen.

‘Sherlock, there’s been -’ He broke off. ‘What in God’s name are you doing?’

Sherlock was sitting at the kitchen table in his robe, bent over some project that John couldn’t see. ‘Experimenting.’ John walked around the table to get a better view of this “experiment.” He was hoping it didn’t involve human body parts, but with Sherlock the odds weren’t very good.

Miraculously, this time there were actually no human bits on the table. Instead, there was a frog. A live frog, pinned to a board, with its stomach cut open. Sherlock was poking around inside it with a scalpel. ‘You’re experimenting with a live frog,’ John half-asked, half-stated. It really shouldn’t have shocked him at this point.

‘It’s more accurate than a dead one,’ he pointed out, prodding something with his scalpel. The frog twitched, and John winced.

‘It’s inhumane.’

‘It’s got nothing to do with humans, it’s a frog.’

John shook his head. ‘As I was saying. There’s been another murder.’ Sherlock stopped what he was doing and looked up. ‘Two of them, actually.’

‘Really?’ He sounded like a kid at Christmas as he dropped the scalpel and jumped up.

‘Yes. In Mayfair.’

‘Let’s go, then.’ He stopped mid stride and glanced at the frog with a frown. ‘Hm.’ Then in one swift movement he scooped up the board the frog was nailed to and stuck it in the refrigerator.

John groaned. ‘Not again, Sherlock.’

‘I have to keep it somewhere,’ he said defensively, and walked out of the kitchen. John followed him, shaking his head.

It took them only fifteen minutes to get ready and leave the flat. John hadn’t had any coffee yet, which was an extreme disappointment, and Sherlock refused to let them stop on the way to get any. They took a cab to Dover Street. They were both silent during the ride - Sherlock deep in thought, and John sleepy, sick, and irritated at his lack of coffee. Sherlock owed him big for this one.

They got out of the cab to see Lestrade, more police tape, and two dead bodies. Seeing this sort of thing first thing in the morning was getting to be almost commonplace, which was probably a bad sign. ‘Who was it this time?’ was Sherlock’s first question.

‘Lady Elizabeth Beaconsfield and the Rt Hon Sir Archibald Proops, QC,’ Lestrade answered.

‘Have you got any coffee?’ John asked before Sherlock could get too carried away. Lestrade shot him a sympathetic look.

‘No, sorry.’

John groaned but nodded. ‘It’s okay. We just left in a hurry.’

‘I didn’t mean to rush you,’ he said.

John laughed. ‘It’s not your fault. Sherlock was quite eager to get started.’

‘He would be.’

Sherlock was glaring at them. ‘Time of death?’

‘Nine thirty four pm last night,’ Lestrade responded. ‘Cause of death for Proops was obvious, he was stabbed through the head. Beaconsfield was strangled.’

‘Hm.’ Sherlock had what John often thought of as his “deduction face” on. ‘That’s not quite consistent with our other two murders, is it.’

‘Not at all. I’m not even sure it was the same murderer.’

‘Oh, it was,’ Sherlock said confidently.

‘How can you tell?’

‘Because these two were both on the board of governors.’

Lestrade gave him a blank look. ‘The what?’

Sherlock waved a hand impatiently. ‘Fill him in, John.’

John sighed but did so anyway, telling Lestrade about their rainy day excursion to St Jude’s Hospital after Googling General Glossop and how they’d discovered that both he and the bishop had been on the board of governors there. ‘He’s got a theory,’ John said, ‘that our murderer is killing off the board of governors one by one.’

‘A theory which has just been proven to be true,’ Sherlock responded. ‘Proops and Beaconsfield were both on the list we got at the hospital.’

‘If it’s the same killer, why did he choose to use a different murder weapon this time? Two different murder weapons, in fact?’

Sherlock shrugged. ‘Perhaps he got bored.’ John and Lestrade both glared at him. ‘You never know. I suppose we’ll find out when we catch him.’

‘Which is going to be soon, right?’ Lestrade said. ‘London’s in uproar.’

‘It should be soon, yes. The more people he murders, the more information we can gain about him and the closer we get to him.’ He rubbed his hands together, grinned at his companions, and set to his investigations.

‘I’ll buy you a coffee when we get done here if you like,’ Lestrade suggested to John in an undertone, trying not to disturb Sherlock. ‘I owe you for the time in Winchester.’

‘You don’t owe me anything,’ John said, shrugging it off. ‘If anything, I owed you for making you come all the way out there.’

‘I’ll still buy you coffee. I mean, unless Sherlock’s going to, but I doubt that...?’ He looked at John expectantly.

‘Of course he’s not buying me coffee! Why would he - really, Lestrade?’ John gave him a disapproving look. ‘We’re not like that at all and you know it.’

‘I have to ask, you know. There are a lot of rumours.’ He looked vaguely amused.

‘Most of which probably originated with Anderson and Donovan, am I right?’

Lestrade shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. It’s as good a guess as any. So...coffee once Mr Holmes here finishes his deductions?’

‘Absolutely.’

Sherlock stood up. John could see the fire in his eyes that meant he was having more fun with this case than was normal, and possibly healthy, for a man to have with murder. ‘Find anything out?’  John asked him.

‘A few things. Let’s start with the woman, shall we? Lady Elizabeth Beaconsfield? Yes. She and this other man, Sir Archibald Proops, were at this club before they were killed. They come here often, because the murderer knew they’d be here and approximately what time they’d be coming out. Regular partiers, then. In fact, they were both drunk at the time of the murder despite their respectable appearances. Lady Beaconsfield is a woman of society who attends charity dinners often; I imagine that was what was going on at this club last night. You can tell by her dress. It is made of expensive material and isn’t new, though it isn’t worn either, which means she has plenty of fancy dresses to wear to affairs like this. She’s rich enough to buy them and goes to enough events that she has to have multiple dresses, so an upstanding member of society. On the outside, at least. She was married; she would have had to have been in order to get the title of Lady, but her husband died years ago. The indent and tan line that one would normally see on a married woman’s finger are missing, though she is wearing several other expensive rings. If memory serves, Lord Beaconsfield died twenty years ago.’ John wanted to ask how he knew that, but didn’t. It was most likely something he’d run across reading the papers and had written down in those books of his in case it ever came in handy.

‘Now, a curious point about her body is that she was strangled not with the man’s hands, and not with a rope, but with the necklace she was wearing. You can see the marks of the chains imprinted in her skin even hours later. However, she is not wearing the necklace now. The murderer didn’t take it. He didn’t take the bishop’s cross or the general’s medals, so he’s clearly not killing for money. The next most likely explanation is that her body was robbed after she was killed, but if that was the case, the robber would have also taken her rings. All that was taken was the necklace, and given that it was the murder weapon, it is most likely that the murderer took it. He wouldn’t have kept it, though; it would have been evidence that we could trace back to him. Given that she was at a charity dinner, and like the others she was a hypocrite, it’s quite possible that he gave it to charity.’

‘You’re saying he killed this woman with her own necklace only to tear it off and give it to some beggar,’ John asked, trying to get it straight. Sherlock talked so fast it was almost impossible to keep up with him.

‘Exactly, my dear John. Now! On to the other victim, Sir Archibald Proops. It is obvious from his title and his silk robe that he was a member of the Queen’s Counsel.’

‘The what?’

‘Lawyers, John, lawyers. He was appointed about five years ago judging by the state of his robes. He was incredibly proud of it and wore his robe everywhere - there are many little stains and other such marks on them that indicate that he wore the robe at all times. He, too, was drunk at the time of the murder; cheap wine, by the smell of it. He paid for his own drink last night; if someone else had been paying he would have drunk a higher quality wine. That didn’t stop him from drinking plenty of the cheap wine he had, though. It must have been quite a boring dinner.’ He laughed. John failed to see what about this murder was funny, but then this was Sherlock.

‘He too was a frequent partier,’ Sherlock continued. ‘He would have gotten a fairly high salary from his position on the Queen’s Counsel, and if he could only afford a cheap wine last night he must waste a good deal of it. He’s not married, so that’s not where the money went, and for a middle aged single man the only other likely explanation for his lack of money is that he drinks often and copiously. That or he gambles, but seeing as he’s a lawyer I doubt that. He was a busy man with very little time to spend on his personal appearance - he hadn’t shaved in two or three days, by the looks of his stubble. His robe is in perfect order, though, which means he took great pride in his job. He was a methodical man despite his busy schedule; even though he hadn’t shaved in several days he did a careful and even job of it when he last did. His stubble is all the same length and he didn’t nick himself at all. A methodical lawyer who frequents parties and drinks a lot is undoubtedly a hypocrite, which means we have four hypocrites dead in eight days. Our killer’s been busy.’

John gave him the “you can’t make jokes at a crime scene” face. Sherlock gave him back the “oh come now, you thought it was amusing too” face. John scowled.

‘Now the really interesting bit about these murders,’ Sherlock continued brightly, ‘is that there was at least one witness to them.’ Lestrade and John both raised their eyebrows, which was the reaction Sherlock had been shooting for. ‘These two would not have gone to a charity dinner and gotten themselves as drunk as they did without having an escort to make sure they got home safely. It wouldn’t do for them to be found passed out in the gutter the next morning. Think of the detriments to their reputations. Although I suppose being found dead outside the Mayfair Club doesn’t exactly make them look good either. Ah well, at least they aren’t around to be upset about it.’

‘Sherlock.’

‘What?’

‘How many times do I have to tell you you can’t make fun of the murder victims.’

‘How else am I supposed to amuse myself?’

‘Deduce. What was that you were saying about their third companion?’

‘Ah yes!  He would have been a friend of theirs. The murderer didn’t kill him, which means either he wasn’t a member of the board of governors or the murderer is biding his time until he kills him. I suppose the man could have run before witnessing the murders, but I doubt that - he would have seen the killer and had no reason to run until Sir Proops and Lady Beaconsfield had been killed, and that would have happened so fast that he wouldn’t have had time to run until after the murders. Which means, whoever the third companion was, he saw both the murderer and the murders.’

‘Then we need to find him,’ John said. ‘Who is he?’

‘Sadly, we don’t actually know,’ Sherlock said. He sounded somewhat irritated at that fact, as though he was angry with himself for not being able to figure that out. ‘It would be someone that was close to Proops and Beaconsfield, so most likely a member of the board of governors. But then why would the murderer let him go, especially if he had seen him?’ He started pacing back and forth along the police tape, brow furrowed. ‘He must be planning to kill him later. But if he was planning to kill him anyway, why not do it then? Unless he got away before he had a chance to...’ He was talking to himself now. ‘But the evidence implies that the murderer let the witness go. Why? He doesn’t want to be caught, so why let a witness go that could and would turn him in? Unless he knew the witness wouldn’t turn him in. Maybe the witness knew him and they struck a bargain. The witness must have known him, especially if he was a member of the board of governors. The murderer has to be someone with a grudge against the board, which implies that the witness knew him. But why did the murderer let him go?’ His one sided conversation trailed off, though from the look on his face and the increased speed of his pacing, John could tell it was continued in his mind. His frown got deeper and deeper until John began to think his eyebrows were going to knit themselves together permanently.

‘Sherlock,’ John said, taking hold of his arm to stop him pacing.

‘The beggar!’ he exclaimed suddenly.

John jumped in surprise and let go of him. ‘Sorry, what?’ He was sure there was a long and fully sensible string of logic in Sherlock’s head that had gotten him from that little argument with himself to this beggar, but John had no idea what it was.

‘The beggar,’ he repeated, ‘the one the murderer gave the necklace to. We need to find her.’

‘Where would she be?’ John asked.

‘Somewhere near here, no doubt.’

‘So, what, we just wander the streets until we come across a beggar wearing a diamond necklace?’

‘Of course not. She won’t be wearing it, that’s far too obvious and someone is likely to try and steal it from her if it’s visible. No, she’ll have it hidden.’

‘So we wander the streets until we see a beggar woman who looks like they might be hiding a diamond necklace.’

‘That is the general idea, yes.’

John groaned quietly. The idea of more street wandering did not appeal to him in the slightest, especially before he’d had his coffee. ‘Can we stop and get coffee first?’

‘I promised I’d buy him some,’ Lestrade offered. ‘It won’t hurt anyone to delay a few more minutes.’

‘You don’t know that,’ Sherlock countered. ‘In the ten minutes it takes for John to get his morning coffee, the murderer could strike again.’ He didn’t sound too worried about it.

‘You’d love that, wouldn’t you,’ Lestrade said. Sherlock shrugged modestly.

‘Right,’ John said, ‘we are not going anywhere else until I get my coffee and that is final.’

Sherlock looked slightly annoyed, though John knew Sherlock wouldn’t stay mad at him for long. He never did. ‘Fine. I suppose I could do with some coffee myself.’

The one good thing about having a murder case in a rich neighbourhood of London was that you were never too far from an upscale coffee shop. They stopped in one and purchased coffee for the three of them as well as a scone with jam for John. Lestrade paid, for which John was quite thankful; he and Sherlock had been eating out more often than usual, as they tended to do when Sherlock was on a case, and as a result John was spending more money on food than he normally did. Unfortunately, since Sherlock was just helping the police out on this case and there was no actual client involved, he wouldn’t get paid for it. Which meant he couldn’t pay John back all the cab fare he owed him.

They sat down to drink their coffee, at John’s insistence. Sherlock, eager to find this mysterious beggar who may not have even existed, downed his in five minutes flat, while Lestrade and John took closer to twenty minutes to finish ours. The coffee was good but also very hot; how Sherlock had drunk it so quickly without burning his tongue was beyond John. Perhaps he had and he just hadn’t cared. Perhaps he hadn't felt it at all. In any case, he was done long before Lestrade and John, and as a result he glared at them impatiently the entire time. It was somewhat unnerving to try and enjoy your coffee when there was an impatient man staring you down, and his strategy to get them to finish more quickly likely backfired.

There were no more murders during the time they spent in the coffee shop, to John’s relief and Sherlock’s great dismay. He was more impatient than ever as they left the shop and headed out to search the neighbourhood.

‘Perhaps we should split up,’ Lestrade suggested, trying to appease Sherlock’s impatience.

‘Excellent idea,’ Sherlock agreed. ‘John and I will go this way, and you can go that way.’ Without waiting for a response, he grabbed John’s wrist and tugged him down the street at a brisk pace. John managed to shoot a “help me” sort of look back at Lestrade before they rounded a corner.

John tugged his arm out of Sherlock’s tight grip and hurried to keep up with him. ‘What exactly are we looking for?’ I asked.

‘Beggars,’ he replied. ‘Particularly female beggars. Particularly female beggars who look like they might be hiding something.’

‘And how will we know if they look like they’re hiding something.’ John was extremely skeptical about this entire plan.

‘They just will. You’re a doctor, John, surely you can read people?’

‘I’m a doctor, not a psychiatrist,’ John retorted. Sherlock laughed at that.

They wandered the streets for upwards of an hour without finding a single beggar. It was a bit early in the morning for anyone to be out panhandling even in a rich neighbourhood. Lestrade and John exchanged a few texts, asking each other if the other had found anything yet and getting negative responses each time. John was tiring quickly. He prided himself on his endurance, but this cold was evidently taking a lot out of him. What he really needed was a nice relaxing day of laying around the flat doing nothing except perhaps making headway on the novel he’d started reading two or three weeks ago. What he was going to get was several more days of running all over London looking for suspects, witnesses, victims, and ultimately a murderer.

‘Are we going to do this all week?’ John asked at one point, out of breath from trying to keep pace with Sherlock’s long strides. ‘The running, I mean.’

‘We’re not running,’ Sherlock countered.

‘The brisk walking, then.’

‘Possibly, yes.’

John groaned. ‘I wish I’d known there would be this much physical activity involved in living with you when I’d moved in,’ he said. ‘I came back to London to rest and recover from my injury, not get involved in every crime that comes along.’

‘You would have moved in with me anyway,’ he replied confidently. ‘For the danger.’

John couldn’t argue with that, so I just stayed quiet.

Finally, just when John was about to tell Sherlock it was time to call it quits for the morning and go get some lunch, they found her. She was sitting in a doorway in a side street about a mile from the crime scene as the crow flies, though they must have walked five miles trying to find her. She was reading a book, which was why Sherlock took another look at her in the first place. That, and the fact that she was the first beggar they’d seen all morning.

‘Good morning,’ Sherlock said amiably. The woman started and looked up, snapping her book shut. John got a glance at the title as she did so. It was something to do with neuroscience. A beggar who read books about neuroscience was someone worth talking to even if she wasn’t a possible witness to a murder, in John’s opinion.

‘What do you want?’ the beggar woman asked. She wasn’t ugly, though her time on the streets hadn’t exactly made her beautiful. She was wearing a dress that had probably been yellow at one time or another but was now a dull shade of greyish brown, torn, covered in stains, and probably a good six inches shorter than it had been when she’d bought it. She had long, curly dark hair, which hung in a sort of uneven tangled mess about her dirt-smudged face, and intelligent eyes that seemed to see right through Sherlock and John. John had the feeling she was reading them more easily than the neuroscience book sitting on her lap.

‘Now, now,” Sherlock chided her,  “that’s no way to talk to a gentleman, Miss...?’

‘Elizabeth,’ the woman said sullenly. She was more of a girl, really; perhaps twenty five or so. Her angular face made her look older than her years. ‘And you’re Sherlock Holmes. What do you want?’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘You know who I am.’

‘Yes.’

‘Then you also know it is pointless to try and lie to me or even keep the truth from me.’

‘Yes.’ The set of her chin was almost defiant, as if to say “challenge accepted.” She had spunk, John had to give her that.

Sherlock’s eyes flicked up and down her body, and John knew he was seeing in her disheveled appearance far more than John had or could ever hope to. ‘The necklace, please,’ Sherlock said after a long moment, holding his hand out. She just stared him down. He twitched his fingers in a “give it to me” sort of way. ‘Come now, Elizabeth, I know you have it. Lady Beaconsfield’s necklace.’ A small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. ‘Her name was Elizabeth too, but they called her Bessie. What do they call you?’

‘Elizabeth,’ she replied, but she pulled the necklace out from a crack underneath the step she was sitting on and handed it to Sherlock. He turned it over in his hand. It must have been an incredibly expensive necklace; it appeared to be silver, inlaid with at least twenty or thirty diamonds of various shapes and cuts. The sunlight sparkled off of it so brightly that John had to look away in order not to be blinded. It would have been pretty if it wasn’t so extravagant. John could only imagine what Lady Beaconsfield would have looked like wearing it, paired with that outrageous pink layered dress she’d been wearing. She must have looked quite ridiculous. The image brought a little smile to John’s face, and Sherlock looked at him askance as if wondering what was so funny.

‘Well then, Elizabeth,’ Sherlock said, turning back to the woman, ‘tell me how you came to have this necklace.’

‘If you found me, you already know.’

‘Yes, the man who killed Lady Beaconsfield gave it to you. But who was he?’

‘I don’t know. A man.’

Sherlock shook his head as though in sorrow. ‘Oh, Elizabeth, you know it’s useless to lie to me. You said so yourself. Why do you insist on continuing to do so?’

‘Give me back the necklace and I’ll tell you more.’ Her eyes were blazing, daring him to refuse her.

‘Ah, I see.’ He smiled triumphantly, swinging the necklace back and forth absently. ‘You were studying chemistry and neuroscience at university but got expelled due to some scandal; an unauthorised experiment or some such, I assume. You need the necklace to pay your way back into the university, am I wrong?’ He didn’t ask if he was right the way normal people did. No, Sherlock asked if he was wrong.

Most people at that point would have looked shocked and spluttered something about how there was no way he could have known all of that, or gotten annoyed and told him to bugger off. Elizabeth, though, just looked at him evenly and said, ‘No, you’re not wrong. Of course. The great Sherlock Holmes is never wrong.’ Her voice was almost bitter.

‘He was wrong about the sugar one time,’ John interjected, feeling the need to deflate Sherlock’s ego just a bit before that comment, despite its sarcasm, went to his head.

Sherlock gave John a sharp look. ‘It was the logical answer. You would have come to it too, I’m sure, given the evidence and a lot of time.’ That was probably an insult to John's intelligence, but John let it go. He was used to it by now.

‘Give me the necklace,’ Elizabeth repeated, ‘and I’ll tell you what I know.’

‘All of what you know,’ Sherlock asked, ‘or just what suits you?’

‘Either way it’ll be more than you know now.’ John had to give her credit; she’d dodged the question quite effectively.

‘I don’t know,’ Sherlock said, ‘this necklace is evidence. It might have the fingerprint of the murderer on it. Of course, it might have your fingerprints on it as well... It wouldn’t do for the police to think you murdered Lady Beaconsfield, now would it?’

‘Don’t threaten me,’ Elizabeth said, half laughing. ‘It won’t do you any good. I know you know I didn’t kill Beaconsfield, or Proops, or Glossop, or that bishop, and you’ve already told the police that the killer was a man.’

‘Ah, so you did see the killer,’ Sherlock said. He was still dangling the necklace from one of his long fingers, taunting her with it.

‘Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t and I’m just assuming that the killer was a man because that is the most likely scenario.’ She was taunting him right back. John almost laughed. Sherlock seemed to have met his match, or at least a worthy opponent, in this feisty beggar girl. ‘You’ll never know unless you give me back my necklace.’

Sherlock considered for a moment, then tossed it back to her. She caught it without hardly looking. ‘Now. Tell me what the murderer looked like.’

‘Don’t you already know? There must have been footprints near the bishop’s body; it rained the night before.’

‘Then you should also know that all I could get from that is his height, his shoe size, and his weight,’ Sherlock retorted. ‘It tells me nothing about his face, his hair, his clothing, or any number of other important features that could lead me to the murderer.’

‘He was short  and strong, though not heavy set. But of course you already know all of this.’ Sherlock nodded once in affirmation. ‘He had dark hair.’

‘Long? Short? Dark brown, or black? Curly? Straight?’ Sherlock fired off the barrage of questions like so many bullets.

‘It was nighttime when I saw him,’ Elizabeth replied defensively. ‘It could have been any of those things.’

‘Oh come now, I know you noticed.’

‘I’m telling you I don’t know. Wouldn’t you rather me not know than give you false information that could lead you down a wrong path?’

Sherlock looked like he wanted to slap the girl, but fortunately he didn’t. ‘Very well. What was he wearing?’

‘A long dark coat. I don’t know what was underneath it.’

‘New coat? Old coat? What was it made of?’

‘Not too old, but not in the best of shape either. I couldn’t tell the material in the dark.’ John wondered if that was going to be her default response to everything, that she couldn’t tell because it was dark.

‘And he carried a walking stick.’

‘Of course.’

‘What did it look like?’

At that, Elizabeth smiled for the first time since they’d met her. It wasn’t exactly a smile of happiness, though. ‘Oh, it’s a very special walking stick,’ she said. ‘It looks like a normal walking stick at first glance, but it has a sword inside it.’

Sherlock’s eyes lit up. ‘Ah. That explains how he killed Proops. It was the walking stick after all. He must have killed Proops, then threatened Lady Beaconsfield with it before killing her with her own necklace.’

‘You describe it as if you had been there,’ Elizabeth noticed.

‘From which I should gather that you were in fact there.’

‘You knew that already.’

‘Then tell me, what did the murderer say? Or was it too dark for you to hear that as well?’

She laughed at that, genuine laughter. ‘Would you believe me if I said the noise from the club was too loud for me to hear the conversation? Or that I was too far away?’

‘Not in the slightest, and you know it. You’re not the sort of girl who would sit by and ignore a confrontation of that sort. No, you would have moved within earshot of the argument.’ Sherlock and Elizabeth were staring each other down now, not even so much as blinking. It was quickly becoming obvious that this was a battle of wits that they were locked in, and the girl was giving Sherlock a run for his money. John couldn’t even hope to keep up with what was going on, so he did the smart thing and stayed silent. ‘So tell me,’ Sherlock said, as if they were talking about the weather instead of two brutal murders, ‘what did the murderer say to Proops?’

‘He said “the only thing arrested here, sir, is your intelligence,”’ Elizabeth quoted. ‘You should have asked a better question.’

‘Implying that there is in fact a better question to be asked. No matter; I can still learn plenty from what I have. The murderer made some sort of remark or threatening gesture, and Proops threatened to have him arrested, yes?’ Elizabeth didn’t respond, which Sherlock took as an affirmative. ‘Was that the last thing he said before he killed him?’

‘He also said “hypocrite.”’

‘I could have guessed that much. But thank you for confirming my suspicion that he killed them because they were hypocrites.’ Neither of them had blinked yet. John wondered if that was quite healthy. ‘Now, tell me what he said to Lady Beaconsfield.’

‘He called her a drunken hag and told her he’d make a donation of her necklace to charity.’ Again, nothing they hadn’t already known or guessed. Well, deduced; Sherlock hated it when people referred to it as guessing.

‘And what were the victims talking about when the murderer appeared?’

‘How much they hated charity dinners.’ Another useless remark. It pointed to their hypocritical nature but nothing more. Of course, it was quite possible that Sherlock would gain from that little remark a clue that would solve the entire case. It seemed unlikely, but then so did all the seemingly illogical deductions Sherlock made.

Sherlock was silent for a moment, studying the girl. After a long, tense moment, he said, ‘There was another man with them.’ Elizabeth didn’t deny it; there was no point in doing so. He knew what he was talking about. ‘Who was he?’

‘His back was to me the entire time. I couldn’t tell.’

‘You could at least tell me what he looked like.’

‘He was a gentleman in a suit. That’s all I saw and all I know.’

Sherlock looked at her long and hard. ‘Anything else you’d care to share with us?’

‘Only that you’d best leave me alone now, because you’ve interrupted my reading.’ She and Sherlock were _still_ staring each other down. John had an urge to get between them and wave his arms around, both to make them blink - it was uncanny the way they were staring, and John was beginning to get slightly uncomfortable - and to remind them that he was still there.

‘Terribly sorry to have bothered you,’ Sherlock said, in a tone that made it clear he wasn’t sorry in the slightest. ‘Best of luck with your studies, Miss Elizabeth.’ By which he meant, “put that necklace to good use because I know who you are,” John presumed. ‘Come, John.’ Ah, so he did remember John. Sometimes John couldn’t be sure.

Sherlock strode away without a backwards glance. John did look over his shoulder as they left, to see Elizabeth staring hard at Sherlock. She was still clutching the diamond necklace in one of her hands. When she saw John looking at her, she made eye contact and then made a show of stowing the necklace back underneath the step and picking up her book. She was still watching them as they rounded the corner.

‘Right,’ John said, ‘I hope you got something out of that, because for the most part it seemed to me like stuff we already knew.’

‘Of course I got something out of it,’ he replied. ‘Miss Elizabeth there knows the murderer.’

‘What?’ John couldn’t help but be taken aback. How he’d gotten that out of those seemingly unhelpful remarks was beyond me.

‘Oh yes. You noticed she didn’t hesitate to tell me the conversation the four of them had, and she wasn’t lying about not seeing the third man. What she did lie about, however, is the physical appearance of the murderer. She knew perfectly well what he looked like even in the dark, though she might not have known exactly what material his coat was made out of. She withheld more information about his appearance because she knows him and wants to protect him.’

‘Then we should have arrested her,’ John said, ‘if she’s helping the killer.’

‘Oh, she’s not helping him,’ Sherlock replied. ‘I doubt if he even recognised her. But she recognised him, even in the dark, and for whatever reason she doesn’t want him getting caught.’ He made a somewhat disgusted face. ‘Knowing women, she’s probably in love with him.’

John felt as though he should berate Sherlock for that, stick up for women a little, but from his limited experience with the fairer sex Sherlock’s statement did seem to be true. ‘How does a beggar like her know a gentleman like him, though?’

‘Weren’t you paying attention, John? She wasn’t always a beggar. She was at university for a while; she probably met him there.’

‘So she met this guy at uni, fell in love with him, then got expelled and fell to ruin and now she sees him murdering high ranking members of society and feels she needs to protect him?’

‘Sounds about right. I suspect they had a falling out over whatever got her expelled, though, and they haven’t spoken in a while. He might not have recognised her in the darkness and with her impoverished appearance, but she most definitely recognised him.’

‘She was studying neuroscience and chemistry, you said?’ He nodded. ‘Then our murderer most likely is knowledgeable in those areas, right?’

He nodded approvingly. ‘Very good, John. The murderer is a man who has studied chemistry and neuroscience and has a bone to pick with the Board of Governors at St Jude’s Hospital.’ His usually stern face broke out in a grin. ‘We’re getting closer, John!’


	7. Chapter Seven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been so long since I updated this, exams and life kind of happened. Anyway, here's another chapter, though not a very long one...I promise I'll update somewhat regularly from now on...

John texted Lestrade to let him know they’d found what they were looking for, and they agreed to meet up at a cafe for lunch and catch Lestrade up on what he’d missed. The three men met at one of the little cafes that Sherlock and John frequented when they were on cases and took a table for three, which got them some interesting looks from the servers who were used to seeing just John and Sherlock. John felt a bit bad for Lestrade; he was going to be the subject of a few rumours in this particular cafe after this afternoon. On the other hand, though, maybe it would convince him to help put a stop to the rumours that were already circulating.

John had rarely been so happy to sit down in his life. He was beginning to wonder just how bad this cold was going to be - two days and already it was sucking the energy out of him like some sort of parasitic creature. Maybe they could solve this accursed mystery today and John could take one of Mrs Hudson’s herbal soothers and get to bed early.

‘You found your beggar, then,’ Lestrade said as he sipped his water. He was looking somewhat irritated at the fact that he’d just wasted an entire morning scouring London for a potential witness that he hadn’t even had the honour of finding.

‘Indeed we did, and we got some valuable information from her, too,’ Sherlock said proudly. He filled Lestrade in over lunch, and together the three of them debated what the next steps to take should be. John mostly stayed out of the conversation; he was tired and feeling worse and worse all the time. A couple of times Sherlock glanced confusedly at him as though wondering at the sudden change in his friend’s behaviour.

‘Are you feeling all right, John?’ Sherlock asked at one point.

‘Just fine,’ John told him, ‘aside from the bloody cold I caught running around in the rain the other day.’

‘Nothing you won’t survive, then,’ he said, and went back to his conversation, leaving John wondering what exactly his purpose had been in asking.

Eventually they finished lunch and had to get up, much to John’s dismay. It had been nice to relax for a short time, but it was always go go go with Sherlock. It had started to rain while they’d been eating, which was not by any means an abnormal occurrence in London, but it irritated John all the same. Sherlock caught his expression and assured him, ‘We’ll take a cab, John.’

‘Thanks. What’s the plan for the rest of the afternoon?’

‘Well, we could go talk to the neuroscience and chemistry departments of all the London colleges, or we could attempt to get ahold of the few remaining members of the Board of Governors...’ Seeing the look on John’s face, he added, ‘Or we could go back to the flat and do nothing all afternoon.’

‘Let’s do that,’ John suggested.

‘Someone else might die.’ He didn’t even attempt to sound as though that thought didn’t give him a certain amount of pleasure.

‘Lots of people die every day,’ John pointed out. ‘It’s what people do.’

Sherlock laughed. ‘You have a point there. Not to mention you sound like you need a nice long nap. Let’s go back to the flat, shall we?’

‘Absolutely.’

They hailed a cab and went back to the flat. John was silent the entire time, more out of exhaustion than anything else. The first thing Sherlock did when they got in the door was to call, ‘Mrs Hudson? We’re back.’

She came out into the hallway and gave them the disapproving look they got so often. ‘You boys have gone and gotten yourselves all wet. What are you going to do if one of you catches a cold?’

John opened his mouth to complain about the cold he’d already caught, but Sherlock beat him to it. ‘Actually, I was hoping you had some of those herbal soothers. John’s already getting sick and it wouldn’t do to have my best assistant out of commission in the middle of an important case.’

‘I do have some,’ Mrs Hudson replied, ‘just give me a moment.’

A few minutes later, armed with an herbal soother and another dose of Nyquil, John collapsed on the couch with a heavy sigh. ‘Please let’s not do all the walking tomorrow, okay, Sherlock?’

‘We can take cabs,’ he agreed.

‘Thanks.’ It was a small concession, but John appreciated it greatly. ‘I’m going to take a nap. You can go back to your frog or something.’

‘Thanks, I think I will,’ he said, and headed off into the kitchen. John drank his tea and tried not to fall asleep in it. After a few minutes the Nyquil kicked in in force and he had to set the tea aside so as not to spill it when he finally nodded off.

 

John woke up sometime much later in the evening. The sky outside their curtains had turned from the soft grey of a rainy afternoon to the deep, steely grey of a rainy evening. Sometime while he was asleep someone had put a blanket over him, for which he was grateful; it was getting chilly in the flat. His half-full mug of tea was sitting on the table where he’d left it, though it was probably stone cold by now.

There was a light on in the kitchen, and John could hear the sound of metal clinking together as Sherlock presumably continued to dissect the poor frog. He got up, wrapped the blanket around himself, and went to see what Sherlock was up to. In the process he discovered that he’d never actually taken his shoes off; he kicked them off and left them lazily in the middle of the floor.

Sherlock looked up from his microscope when John entered the room. ‘Ah, good evening, John. Would you like some soup? Mrs Hudson brought it up, I think she feels sorry for you.’

John opened the refrigerator - which, thankfully, was devoid of frogs, eyeballs, rotting food, and all manner of other science experiments - and pulled out a Tupperware full of chicken noodle soup. He made a mental note to thank Mrs Hudson profusely the next time he saw her as he poured himself a bowl and heated it in the microwave. He had to remove a set of prepared microscope slides first but didn’t bother asking what was on them; he knew better. He only hoped his preposterous flatmate wasn’t studying some sort of disease that could infect his soup. Not that he wasn’t already sick, but if there was one thing he had learned in this life it was that you could always, always get sicker.

Sherlock had apparently given up on the frog and moved on to another project, because the microscope that had been on the counter when John had been in here this morning and was now on the table. John shoved a few beakers out of the way and sat down with his bowl of soup. ‘How’s your experiment going?’ he asked, for lack of anything better to make small talk about.

‘Quite well, actually. I’m studying the effects of tetanus on frogs.’

John paused with his spoon halfway to his mouth. ‘Oh.’ So it was a deadly disease.

‘Don’t worry, I didn’t store any of the slides in the microwave.’ Relieved, John let the spoon complete its journey to his mouth. He was glad he did; the soup was delicious. ‘Those are from last week’s study on the eyes.’ Suddenly John didn’t want to eat the soup again, but it was so delicious he just couldn’t help himself. At least if he caught a horrible disease from it, it wouldn’t be tetanus.

‘What time is it?’ John asked after a moment. Sherlock shrugged. ‘Would you check for me, please?’

‘I’m busy.’

‘And I’m sick, just check the time, would you?’

Exasperated, he sighed but did so. ‘Seven forty eight.’

‘Hm. I slept for a while, didn’t I.’

‘Indeed you did.’

‘Did I miss anything terribly exciting?’

‘Mrs Hudson gave me a lecture when she brought the soup up. Something about how I was going to be the death of you, making you run around London like this when you’re still recovering from your time in Afghanistan.’ There was a smile in his voice even if there wasn’t one on his face. They both knew John was perfectly well recovered except for a little bit of soreness in his leg every now and then and an increased susceptibility to diseases. Like this one. Maybe Mrs Hudson had a point.

‘Well, even you have to admit you deserved that lecture.’

‘Nobody told you you had to come with me.’

‘Actually, as I recall, you woke me up and told me to come with you.’

‘Did I? My mistake. Next time I’ll let you sleep in and miss all the excitement.’

‘Don’t you dare.’ They were arguing, yes, but it was playful banter. John had gotten over most of the irritation he’d felt with Sherlock for getting him sick. After all, he was right in saying that John didn’t have to come with him all the time.

‘Then don’t complain.’ Sherlock lapsed into silence again, staring intently at something under the microscope. Tetanus-infected frog cells, probably.

‘Did you hear from any of the governors yet?’ John asked after a moment or two of silence.

‘No, but that reminds me.’ He pushed the microscope back, pulled his phone from his pocket, and dialed a number. It rang several times and then evidently went to an answering machine. Sherlock said, ‘Hello, Lord Savage, this is Sherlock Holmes. I just wanted to let you know that there’s a murderer on the loose who as you no doubt know has already killed four of your acquaintances and is likely to try and kill you as well. Don’t worry, though, we’ll find the murderer, either before or after he kills you. Anyway, we think you might have information that could be of use to us in helping to solve this case, so if you could kindly call me back at this number, that would be quite helpful. Thank you and good evening.’ And with that, he hung up.

John stared at him for a moment, wondering what on earth that had been about. ‘I warned him,’ Sherlock said with a shrug. ‘You should be happy.’

‘I’d be happier,’ John said, ‘if you’d done it in a way that didn’t make it sound like you were threatening him.’

‘I’m not the murderer, though.’

‘He doesn’t know that.’

‘He might, if he was the one who was with Proops and Lady Beaconsfield last night.’ He had a point there.

‘Are you going to call the others as well?’ John asked. ‘How many are left, anyway?’

‘Only two besides Savage,’ Sherlock replied. ‘The chairman, Sir Danvers Carew, and the secretary Simon Stride. And yes, I’ll call them.’

John wondered what sort of a name Lord Savage was while Sherlock called the other living members of the board of governors and left them similar, and not much less threatening, messages. It sounded, John decided, like something out of a bad novel. Lord Savage. It kind of had a ring to it, and John thought about how ironic it would be if he was savagely murdered within the next few days.

He shook my head to clear it as Sherlock pocketed his phone again. Too much murder and Nyquil and not enough sleep made for some interesting thoughts, it seemed. ‘So are any of them actually going to call us back?’

‘I hope so, because if not we’re going to have to get their addresses and pay them a little visit.’ It was an innocent enough statement, but somehow Sherlock made it sound ominous.

‘As long as we don’t have to walk, that’s fine with me.’ John finished his soup, washed the bowl out, and put it away. ‘Have fun with your experiment, I’m going to go watch telly.’

‘Is anything interesting on tonight?’ he asked without taking his eyes off his microscope.

‘There’s never anything interesting on.’

‘Is there anything less boring on tonight?’ he rephrased the question.

‘I don’t know. Probably not.’

‘I might join you later.’

‘Okay.’ Still wrapped in the blanket, John went back out into the sitting room.

There was nothing good on telly, as usual. Sherlock joined him after about an hour to shout deductions at the screen and tell the characters what to do. He really was quite impossible to watch telly with. Eventually John fell asleep again.

 

* * * * *

 

_‘Herbert?’ The man shoved his way out of a crowd of people as he moved through the train station. ‘Herbert, is that you?’ He caught up with the other man. ‘I got your message, what’s the urgency?’_

_‘I’m leaving London, Danvers,’ Herbert replied. ‘It’s not safe for me here.’ It wasn’t hard to see that the poor man feared for his life. His face was chalky pale and the bags under his eyes betrayed his lack of sleep over the past few days. He seemed to have aged a year in the past week._

_‘Where are you going?’ Danvers asked. He looked worried for his friend._

_‘I am telling that,’ said Herbert with an air of superiority, ‘to no one.’ He paused. ‘Aberdeen, actually. I’ll be at the Highland Club if you need me.’ He sighed. ‘Look, Danvers, I don’t know what you’ve heard. I really tried to save the others. I really tried. Tried like hell!’_

_‘I know you did, Herbert,’ Danvers assured him with a pat on the shoulder, ‘but that’s between you and God. Only you and God know you tried. Please have a safe trip.’ He started to walk off, but Herbert, desperate, tried to stop him._

_‘Listen, Danvers --’ But the other man was gone. Herbert stared after him for a moment, practically trembling with fear._

_A low laugh seemed to come out of nowhere. Herbert started and looked around nervously as if expecting a ghost or demon to jump out at him at any moment. But what spoke next was not a ghost or a demon, only a man, albeit an unpleasant one. ‘Bad news from God, Herbert,’ he said. Herbert was still looking around for the speaker in vain when the man leapt down off the nearby stairs. His sword flashed once as a train whistle blew, the blade connecting with Herbert’s neck. He never knew what hit him. His body collapsed to the ground, closely followed by his head, which hit the station floor with a dull thump and rolled to the side. His eyes were wide and staring, and his monocle had fallen out._

_ His murderer landed in a crouch next to him with his sword angled out to the side. ‘Hypocrite,’ he muttered to the body as he wiped his sword on the dead man’s clothes. Then he sheathed it and disappeared back into the crowd. _


	8. Chapter Eight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know I said regular updates from now on buuuuuut college happened. Actually really regular updates from now on, promise...
> 
> Also, for those of you who expressed interest in the Sherlock/Liz relationship (and the rest of you, too!), my dear friend [Emotional_Mayhem](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Emotional_Mayhem) is posting a series of one-shots we've written about Sherlock and Liz! We're trying to post them in chronological order and without spoiling the rest of this fic, so what's up now should be safe :) Go check it out: [NeuroLock](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1946856/chapters/4207614)

John woke up before Sherlock that morning, which was a rare occurrence, especially since Sherlock  usually didn’t sleep when he was on a case. All of the walking and deducing and dissecting must have gotten to him, or perhaps whatever show they had been watching had simply bored him to sleep. It was a legitimate possibility. John had a sudden, immature urge to take a photo of Sherlock so he could prove to people his flatmate did in fact sleep, but resisted it. Sherlock wouldn’t have been happy about it. So instead John left him on the couch and went to make coffee. If they were going to spend the day talking to people with names like Lord Savage, John was going to need a lot of coffee.

On the upside, though, Sherlock had cleaned up his frog experiment before he’d joined John on the couch, which was quite uncharacteristic of him. He must have finished it. Also on the upside, John was feeling slightly better this morning; the tea and Nyquil must have helped. The extra sleep probably hadn’t hurt, either. As for the crap telly, John didn’t know what effects it had had on his health, but it probably hadn’t worked wonders for his brain.

The coffee was just finishing up as John’s phone buzzed. ‘Don’t tell me,’ he said as he answered it. ‘There’s been another murder.’

‘How did you know,’ Lestrade said. He sounded almost as weary as John did, and John hoped he hadn’t given him the cold.

‘Where is it this time?’

‘Fenchurch Street Station.’

‘A train station? That’s practically right out in public!’

‘It’s a fresh one, too, they called it in about fifteen minutes ago. I called you straightaway.’

‘Given up calling Sherlock’s phone, then, have you?’

‘He never answers.’

That was true enough. ‘Alright. Let me finish my coffee, and then I’ll wake him up and we’ll come down.’

‘He’s sleeping?’

‘Yeah, it’s a shocker, isn’t it?’

‘No kidding. You should send me a photo.’

‘He’d kill me.’

Lestrade laughed. ‘I’m joking. Don’t take too long, though, they want us to clean this one up quickly.’ And with that curious remark, he hung up.

John sighed and sank down in a chair with his coffee. There went his  relaxing morning.

There was a sound at the doorway, and John looked up to see Sherlock, yawning and running a hand through his already thoroughly mussed up hair. ‘Glad to see you finally got some sleep,’ John remarked as his friend poured himself a cup of coffee and sat down in the chair opposite.

He didn’t even dignify that with a response. Instead, he glanced at John’s expression and then at his phone, which was sitting on the table, and said, ‘There’s been another one, hasn’t there.’

‘Yes. Fenchurch Street Station.’

‘Hm. I expected him to wait a few more days before striking again; so far the pattern has been a murder every four days. Perhaps he knows we’re on to him and wants to cross the rest of the names off his list before he gets caught.’ He cocked his head slightly as if to say “good for him.” ‘When are we leaving?’

‘As soon as I finish my coffee.’

‘Yes, because God forbid John Watson should ever have to leave the flat without having his coffee.’

‘You won’t like me when I haven’t had my coffee,’ John said. ‘I’m not a nice person.’

‘You’re not a nice person when you have had your coffee.’ John glared at him, and Sherlock gave him the smile that meant he was joking.

John took a slow, deliberate sip of his coffee, staring Sherlock down over the rim of his cup. Sherlock stared right back. ‘Who was it this time?’ he asked, undeterred.

‘I have no idea. I didn’t ask.’

‘Why not?’

‘One, because I literally just woke up about five minutes ago, and two, because not everyone is as morbidly interested in murders as you are.’

‘I assure you my interest is purely professional.’

‘If you say so.’ They sipped their coffee in silence for a moment, and then John asked, ‘Who do you think the victim was?’

‘Lord Savage,’ he said without missing a beat. ‘Stride is just the secretary, and Carew wouldn’t have been at the Mayfair Club when Proops and Lady Beaconsfield were killed. The murderer would want to get rid of his witness first. That’s another possible reason he killed him so soon instead of waiting the usual four days.’

‘Is there some sort of significance to the four days?’ John asked. Sherlock shrugged.

‘If we’re dealing with a madman, possibly, but only to him. However, the chances of our murderer being insane are slim to none, which means that no, the four days most likely does not have any significance beyond that it took him that long to figure out how to commit the murder without getting caught.’

‘Ah.’John didn’t really have any other questions about the case at that point, beyond the obvious one of who the murderer was. There was no sense in asking that now, though.

They finished their coffee, got dressed, and headed out. True to his word, Sherlock got them a cab, though that was probably due to the fact that Fenchurch Street Station was an hour and half’s walk from Baker Street, and not even Sherlock wanted to walk that far no matter how much character it would build.

The station was in an incredible state of disorder when they arrived. Most of the trains were still running, though the screen showed the one to Aberdeen was delayed indefinitely. ‘He was headed to Aberdeen, then,’ Sherlock noted as they passed under one of the screens. ‘Definitely Savage. Having witnessed the last murder, he realised he was next and tried to flee.’

Even though the train schedule remained fairly normal, though, the people in the station did not. Some of them were going about their business, trying to catch their trains, but most of them were milling about, huddled in groups and talking amongst themselves. John heard one of them suggest as they walked by that perhaps the murders were the doings of a gang. The speaker, John noticed, was holding a copy of the paper. They would just now be reading about Sir Proops’s and Lady Beaconsfield’s murders in this morning’s paper, and now they were practically witnessing the next murder. John wondered if any of them had been at the Bishop of Basingstoke’s funeral, the Red Rat, or the Mayfair Club at the time of those murders. If so, they probably thought they were next. It almost made him want to laugh, but then he remembered it was a crime scene and they weren’t supposed to laugh at those.

There was an even larger crowd around the gate to the Aberdeen stop. There was yellow police tape around the entire perimeter so that you couldn’t even get through the turnstile. John was really starting to get sick of seeing that stuff everywhere. Sherlock and John pushed their way through the crowd, with John saying things like ‘excuse me’ and ‘sorry’ and Sherlock not bothering to apologise at all. Sherlock ducked under the police tape as though he had every right to, and John followed, a bit less confidently. As a man who had spent most of his life outside the police tape, he still wasn’t quite used to ignoring it and going on through.

‘Good morning, gentlemen,’ Lestrade said as they joined him. ‘We’ve got another one.’

‘So I see,’ Sherlock said, glancing down at the body. This was a much more graphic murder than the last few - not that being strangled with diamonds or choking to death on a walking stick weren’t graphic, but at least those bodies had been in one piece. This one...not so much. Their mysterious murderer had apparently decided to utilise the sword half of his walking stick again, because poor Lord Savage’s head had been severed and was lying sideways on the floor about four feet from his body. ‘That’s too bad,’ Sherlock said, dismayed, and for a moment John thought he actually felt pity for the man’s death. He was about to ask Sherlock if he’d caught the cold as well, but Sherlock continued, ‘He was the only other one who saw the murderer. I was hoping to talk to him before the murderer did. Well, I suppose he didn’t talk to him. Well, maybe he did, but judging by the distance between the head and the body it’s more likely that it was a surprise attack. He probably jumped from...’ He spun in a slow circle. ‘Ah! Those stairs there.’ He pointed. ‘And then he severed Savage’s head mid-jump. Oh, he’s good, this one.’

‘Sherlock.’

‘What.’

‘You’re praising the murderer again.’

‘Am I?’

‘Yes. You are.’

‘Ah.’ And with that, he went to examine the body. It didn’t take him long this time, which either meant he was getting faster with his deductions or there wasn’t much to be gleaned from this particular case.

‘He died too soon,’ Sherlock said, with supreme irritation, as he stood back up. ‘He witnessed the last three murders, not just the last two.’

‘How can you tell?’ John hardly needed to ask; Sherlock was going to tell them anyway.

‘Lord Herbert Savage was a man who preferred partying to his job,’ Sherlock explained at such a rapid pace it could hardly even be called explaining. ‘That is obvious in his treatment of his mobile phone, which has scratches around the edges of the space where the cord plugs in to charge it. You know what that means, don’t you, John?’

John nodded. Sherlock had made the same deduction about John’s sister from his mobile phone the first time they’d met. ‘It means he was a heavy drinker. He would party in the evenings, go home drunk, and plug his phone in to charge it before he went to bed, but since he was drunk he couldn’t get it in on the first try. Thus, the scratches.’

Sherlock nodded approvingly. ‘We already determined he hadn’t been drinking, much, on the night of the murder,’ he continued, ‘because Proops and Lady Beaconsfield needed a sober companion to get them home after the dinner. Now why would a man who spends more of his time partying than working not drink if he had the opportunity, especially if dear Archie was paying? He was worried, of course, the sort of worry you can’t drown in drink because if you’re drunk you can be murdered more easily. The only reason Savage would have been worried about being killed is if he had witnessed Glossop’s murder. Naturally he would have thought he was next and planned accordingly to keep himself safe when he went to the charity dinner at the Mayfair Club. Then, when Proops and Beaconsfield were killed, he realised his precautions weren’t going to be enough and decided to flee the country and go to Scotland, where presumably the killer wouldn’t find him.’

‘Seems that plan didn’t work out.’ John couldn’t quite keep the sardonicism out of his tone.

‘No, it didn’t,’ Sherlock agreed. ‘Before he left, he met a friend here. He wouldn’t leave London without telling anyone; he would have wanted to warn his fellow Governors or at least try to paint himself in a better light as having tried to save the last three who were killed. Now the only question is which friend he would have contacted. It would have been a member of the Board, most of whom have been conveniently eliminated, leaving either Carew or Stride. More likely it was Carew, the chairman, rather than Stride, the lowly secretary. Incidentally, Savage’s eyesight was going; he has a cataract in his left eye. Maybe if he’d worn a monocle he might have seen his murderer coming.’ Sherlock chuckled at his own joke. ‘He was also losing weight - his belt shows considerable wear around one hole, but the belt is currently buckled at the next hole in. Dear Herbert had been dieting. Well, he’ll look good for the funeral, I suppose. Not that they can have a viewing with his body in this state.’

John shot him the “shut up” look again. He ignored it. Again.

‘What’s next, then?’ Lestrade asked. ‘Can we take the body away?’

‘Go right ahead,’ Sherlock said. Lestrade motioned to the forensics team who was standing by, and they moved in and started to wrangle the body into a body bag. ‘Next, we pay Sir Danvers a call and see what he knows.’

Sir Danvers Carew lived in a large but relatively modest house on Gloucester Road in Kensington. Sherlock and John found his address with the aid of a phone book and some creative searching of police records on Lestrade’s part and took a cab over to his house, leaving Lestrade at New Scotland Yard to get Savage’s body squared away. Sir Danvers answered the door when they rang the doorbell. His face fell as he recognised Sherlock. ‘Good morning, Mr Holmes,’ he said. Sherlock nodded in acknowledgement. ‘And this must be Dr John Watson. Come in, gentlemen.’

He motioned them into a spacious parlour that looked right out of the nineteenth century, and John gingerly took a seat on the edge of one of the incredibly soft couches. Sherlock remained standing. Sir Danvers sank into a well used leather armchair and picked up a bottle of brandy from the side table. ‘Care for a drink, gentlemen?’ he asked, uncorking it. John shook his head; Sherlock, distracted by his observation of Sir Danvers, didn’t respond. ‘Don’t mind if I do, then,’ Sir Danvers said, and poured himself a glass. He took a gulp of it and sighed. He looked a bit peaky, John noticed, as though recent events had taken a lot out of him - which they no doubt had; he’d lost five of his friends and colleagues over the past nine or so days. He was a nice looking man, dressed in a neat suit and with thinning hair. Despite the pallor of his face, he looked quite healthy in general, though a slight tremble of his hand as he held the glass of brandy betrayed his stress.

‘I suppose you’ve come about the murders,’ he said, after a few sips of brandy to calm his nerves.

Sherlock nodded and began to pace the room slowly. ‘You’re on the Board of Governors at St Jude’s Hospital along with the five people who have been killed. We were hoping you could give us some very valuable information.’

‘I don’t know what information you’re expecting me to have,’ he said. ‘I didn’t witness any of the murders.’

‘No,’ Sherlock agreed, ‘but as chairman of the Board, you would know all the recent affairs the Board had been involved in.’

‘Are you suggesting that the murderer is someone with a grudge against St Jude’s?’ Sir Danvers asked.

Sherlock nodded, pleased. ‘Very good. I am indeed.’

‘Perhaps it was someone who lost a relative to a medical error,’ Sir Danvers suggested, without conviction.

‘No, if that were the case, he would have just killed the doctor or nurse that was involved in the relative’s death, not the entire Board of Governors. This is definitely someone who hates the Board. Has there been anyone recently who’s had a run in with the Board as a whole? Perhaps someone who had a proposition denied or lost a lawsuit?’

‘Well,’ Sir Danvers said hesitantly, ‘there is one man.’

Sherlock stopped pacing and looked intently at the Sir Danvers. ‘Who?’

Danvers hesitated again. ‘Mind you,’ he said at last, ‘I don’t think he did it. In fact I’m quite sure he didn’t do it. He’s a good man, and I can’t imagine him ever murdering anyone.’ The tremble in his hand had increased into a shake, and John could see the brandy moving in the glass. He took another gulp as Sherlock watched him impatiently. ‘His name is Dr Henry Jekyll,’ Sir Danvers continued. ‘He’s quite interested in research into the human mind, especially as pertaining to mental illness. His father, you see, suffers from a rare mental illness, and Henry is hoping to discover a cure. He made a proposition to the Board a couple of weeks ago. He had developed a formula that, he claimed, would separate good from evil in a man, purging the evil and leaving only the good. He wanted to test this formula on a living human, and the Board shot down his proposition five to none, declaring it sacrilege and lunacy.’

‘Five votes to none?’ Sherlock asked. ‘But there are - well, were - six members of the Board.’

‘I abstained,’ Sir Danvers said. ‘Henry is my friend as well as my daughter’s fiance. I wanted to support him, but I had my doubts about his proposal - it seems so old fashioned, you know, with all that stuff about good and evil - and I didn’t want to anger my fellow governors.’

‘That would explain why you’re still alive, then,’ Sherlock observed. ‘The five who voted against his proposal are the five who have been killed, I’m assuming?’

‘Yes,’ Sir Danvers said, ‘but I’m sure Henry didn’t kill them. I talked to him after the Board meeting. He was upset, but not devastated, and he planned to find a way to carry on his experiments despite being denied a human test subject. He wasn’t angry enough over it to kill anyone, even the Board members.’

‘Who do you think has been murdering people, then?’

‘I have absolutely no idea,’ Sir Danvers replied, ‘but I’m sure it’s not Henry.’

‘You met with Lord Savage this morning at Fenchurch Street Station, did you not?’

‘I did,’ Sir Danvers said, looking a bit shocked that Sherlock knew that.

‘What did you talk about?’

‘He told me he was leaving for Aberdeen. He said he’d tried like hell to save the other three whose murders he witnessed.’

‘I’m sure he did.’ Sherlock’s tone contradicted his statement. ‘What did you say to him?’

‘I said that was between him and God, and then I left.’ Sir Danvers paused. ‘Wait. You said that _five_ people had been killed. What happened to Herbert?’

‘I’m presuming by Herbert you mean Lord Savage,’ Sherlock said. Sir Danvers nodded. ‘Oh, he was killed too.’ He said it in a very nonchalant way, but Sir Danvers’s face paled even further and he took another gulp of brandy. ‘He was found not too long ago with his head lying four feet from his body. He must have been killed only moments after you left.’ John was beginning to think Sherlock took a sort of pleasure in making people as uncomfortable as possible.

‘Sherlock, stop it,’ John chastised. Sir Danvers drained his glass of brandy and poured himself another. His shaking hand spilled it everywhere but in the glass. John went over to his chair, took the bottle from him, and poured the glass himself. Danvers took it from him gratefully and took a huge swig.

‘It’s all right,’ he said finally. ‘I suppose I’d better be used to it by now.’ His hand was still shaking, though, exposing his lie.

‘One more question,’ Sherlock said. ‘What is this Dr Jekyll’s address?’

‘He lives at 46 Harley Street,’ Sir Danvers replied. Sherlock nodded and showed himself to the door.

‘Thank you for your time,’ John said, standing up. ‘And don’t worry. He’ll find the murderer in no time at all.’

Sir Danvers nodded and drained his second glass of brandy. ‘I’m sure he will. Goodbye, Dr Watson.’

‘Goodbye, Sir Danvers. And no more brandy. It’s not even noon yet.’

Sir Danvers laughed a tense little laugh as John followed Sherlock out.


	9. Chapter Nine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> College is busy during October and foils all my attempts to have a proper upload schedule. -_- But hey! A chapter! And as an apology, it's slightly longer than I intended it to be! And, extra bonus, it features the apparently popular Elizabeth, as well as finally introducing Jekyll...

In the cab on the way to 46 Harley Street, John asked Sherlock, ‘Do you really think this Dr Jekyll did it?’

‘Who else?’ was his reply.

‘Well, you heard what Sir Danvers said. He’s a good man and he wasn’t that upset over the rejection of his proposal.’

‘They’re all good men until they go bad,’ Sherlock remarked. ‘In any case, we haven’t got any other suspects, so we can at least talk to Dr Jekyll.’

He was right, so John fell silent.

46 Harley Street, when they arrived at it, was a modest house in a modest neighbourhood. Unlike his enemies on the Board of Governors, Dr Henry Jekyll did not live an extravagant lifestyle, but rather the modest one of a doctor. John could relate to that. In fact, if Jekyll hadn’t been a suspect in the murders of five high ranking members of society, John had the feeling he would have rather liked the man.

Sherlock stabbed the doorbell with one finger, summoning first a muffled buzzing, then footsteps, and finally a man in a dark suit with glasses low on his nose and a slightly manic look in his eyes. His eyes widened as he took the two men in, no doubt recognising Sherlock, but before the man could get out whatever incredulous or rude remark he had been about to make, Sherlock cut him off with a curt ‘We need to talk to Henry Jekyll.’

The man blanched as white as his shirt front and swallowed hard. ‘Dr Jekyll isn’t seeing anyone right now,’ he said finally. ‘Come back later, maybe.’

‘If we have to come back later,’ said Sherlock, ‘we’ll be doing it with a warrant.’ The man’s face hardened. Sherlock kept his voice cordial as he added, ‘we don’t require much of his time.’

‘I’ll talk to him,’ the man said, and hastily shut the door.

‘What was that all about?’ John asked, using a sweeping hand gesture to indicate the man’s behaviour.

‘He’s a friend of Jekyll’s, came here straight after work - he’s a lawyer, incidentally - clearly worried, likely hasn’t seen Jekyll in days. Obviously something he saw or discussed with Jekyll upset him. Given his reaction to being told we wanted to speak with Jekyll, it’s likely he knows, or at least suspects, Jekyll’s guilt.’ Sherlock rubbed his hands together gleefully.

The door opened again and the man reappeared, looking decidedly irritated but no less shaken. ‘Come in then, if you must.’

‘Thank you, John,’ said a remarkably tired and scratchy voice from around the corner as the man led them into the house. Sherlock and John exchanged a glance. That voice sounded nothing like the young man Sir Danvers had led them to expect Dr Jekyll to be. The man - also John, apparently - showed them into a sitting room, where a young man was seated in a tall red velvet armchair looking as though he lacked the strength to stand. He was a tall man, and well built, but something about his posture made him look very small. He was dressed in a suit that looked as though it hadn’t been changed for many days - the white shirt was wrinkled and unbuttoned at the top, the jacket was missing altogether, and there was a bright red stain on the edge of one of his sleeves. He was barefoot, his short dark hair was a mess, and he clearly hadn’t shaved in days. All in all, he looked like a man who had been to Hell and back. He turned his weary eyes on his friend and nodded to the door; his friend took the hint and ducked out of the room.

‘Dr Henry Jekyll, I presume,’ Sherlock said.

Jekyll nodded. ‘And you are?’

‘Sherlock Holmes. This is my companion, Dr John Watson.’ John raised a hand and smiled a little in greeting, wondering what on earth this man had been through recently. Whatever it was, it had clearly taken a toll on him; his face, which was obviously handsome, had the haggard look of a man who hadn’t slept in days, and there were creases in his forehead that looked new. ‘Who was that just now? Danvers said you were seeing no one.’

‘My friend, John Utterson.’ Jekyll paused as the full weight of Sherlock’s words settled in, then sat up a bit straighter in his chair. ‘You talked to Sir Danvers? Why?’

‘We needed information.’

‘About my experiment?’

‘About the murders.’

‘What murders?’ he asked, and John thought he saw a little greenish tinge come into Jekyll’s face.

‘Where have you been the past nine days? Don’t you read the papers?’ Sherlock asked.

‘I have been...rather engaged in my experiment,’ was Jekyll’s careful reply.

‘I’m surprised no one’s told you,’ Sherlock said. He didn’t look surprised. ‘Five of the members of the Board of Governors at St Jude’s Hospital have been killed.’

Immediately all of the colour drained from Dr Jekyll’s face. If he hadn’t already been sitting down, John would have grabbed him and helped him into a chair for fear he would collapse. As it was, Jekyll sank back against the velvet and closed his eyes, and John was worried he was going to pass out, but after a moment he opened his eyes again and said, in a remarkably calm tone, ‘Ah. I hadn’t heard about those.’

His reaction had been so dramatic it was hard to believe that that was true, but he genuinely appeared to be telling the truth. Sherlock and John exchanged a baffled glance.

‘Sir Danvers also told us you had a bit of a disagreement with that very same Board of Governors over a certain proposition,’ Sherlock continued. At this, Jekyll rose and began to pace the room with surprising energy.

‘I did,’ he said, ‘but believe me when I say I never had any intention of killing them, nor did I commit the murders. Yes, I was disappointed, but I’m a scientist as well as a doctor. When something doesn’t go according to plan, a scientist makes a new plan.’

‘There is no one else who matches all the evidence,’ Sherlock said. ‘You are the only one with the motive to kill those five Governors, and you said yourself you haven’t been out of your lab in days, which means you have no alibi. You could easily have slipped out, killed those five people, and snuck back in.’

‘I know what it looks like,’ Dr Jekyll said, his voice completely devoid of emotion, ‘but you have to believe me when I say Dr Henry Jekyll did not kill anyone.’

Sherlock thought for a long moment before finally saying, ‘We will take you at your word for now, Dr Jekyll.’ He motioned for John to stand up and John, though confused, did. ‘We’re leaving, John.’

‘I’m sorry we disturbed you,’ John told Dr Jekyll, positively mystified as to what had just happened. Jekyll shrugged. ‘Best of luck with your experiment.’

Jekyll laughed once, a very dark laugh. ‘Thank you,’ he said.

John followed Sherlock out onto the street. He was pacing a short distance up and down the sidewalk as he waited for a cab. ‘He’s not the murderer.’

‘Sorry?’ John had the distinct sensation of having been mentally lapped.

‘Dr Henry Jekyll did not murder any of the governors.’

‘What? But twenty minutes ago you were telling me that he was the only possible culprit. What changed?’

‘He isn’t the murderer. He’s the wrong height, wrong weight, wrong shoe size, wrong gait, wrong _everything_. He didn’t kill them.’ His voice was sharp, frustrated.

‘Okay, so there’s got to be someone else that has a grudge against the Board of Governors,’ John said, trying to be reasonable. ‘All we have to do is find them and talk to them.’

‘It isn’t anyone else,’ Sherlock said vehemently. ‘A man with a grudge against the Board of Governors, who’s been locked away in his lab for weeks working on an experiment to save his mentally ill father - chemistry and neuroscience, John! He must have studied it in college and met Elizabeth there. It has to be him. There is simply no other option. But it doesn’t fit with my deductions.’

‘Well, maybe your deductions are wrong,’ John suggested, and immediately regretted it. Sherlock stopped in his tracks and whirled around to face John, who was now making a desperate attempt to backpedal. ‘I mean, perhaps someone else came along between when the bishop was killed and when he was found, it  could have been their footprints at the crime scene --’

‘My deductions are not wrong!’ Sherlock burst out. Startled, John stopped talking. ‘They can’t be wrong,’ he continued in a calmer voice, though his agitation was still readily apparent. ‘There were only three sets of footprints at the crime scene. One belonged to the bishop and one belonged to the prostitute, which means the other one must have belonged to the murderer. He was without a doubt of a very different height and build than Dr Henry Jekyll.’ He paused. ‘What were his exact words, John.’

‘What? Whose exact words?’ The sudden change in topic had left John even more lost.

‘Jekyll’s. When he was assuring us of his innocence. What exactly did he say?’

John thought back to the conversation from a few minutes ago. ‘“I know what it looks like,”’ he repeated, ‘“but you have to believe me when I say that Dr Henry Jekyll did not kill anyone.”’

‘Dr Henry Jekyll did not kill anyone. Why didn’t he say “I did not kill anyone”?’

John shrugged. ‘Dramatic effect, possibly?’

‘Not likely. You saw him. This experiment Dr Jekyll is doing is clearly taking a lot out of him. He didn’t have the energy to be dramatic, or to lie, for that matter. His choice of words was deliberate. Dr Henry Jekyll did not kill anyone...’ Sherlock resumed pacing, mind obviously working at a fevered pace. ‘It has to be him. There is simply no one else it could be. But the facts don’t match!’ If there had been a table nearby, John was sure Sherlock would have slammed his fist down on it in irritation.

‘If the facts don’t match the theory, doesn’t that mean the theory is wrong?’ John asked.

‘Generally, yes. But when there is only one possible theory that fits all the facts, the theory has to be right.’

‘But this theory isn’t right.’

‘This theory is right. There’s just something I’m missing, something that will explain how Dr Jekyll could commit the murders and yet not commit them.’

They got a cab back to the flat, and the entire ride John could see Sherlock going over the entire case again in his mind, looking for that tiny little thing he was missing. Even when they got home, Sherlock didn’t say a word, just sat down in his armchair and stared at a spot on the wall with his fingers pressed together in that way of his that meant he was deep in thought. When John asked him if he wanted anything to eat, he was rewarded with silence - in fact, John wasn’t even sure Sherlock had heard him - so John made himself a sandwich and tried to catch up in his blog, right up to the point where Sherlock was stumped. As he’d told Sherlock before when he’d complained about John writing up the unsolved cases, people liked to know he was human.

Sherlock had his epiphany at around two in the afternoon, just as John was considering leaving him to it and going to the shops. ‘The beggar, John!’ he exclaimed as John walked past him. John jumped and nearly dropped the mug of tea he was holding. (His cold was improving, but tea never hurt.)

‘Jesus, Sherlock, don’t _do_ that!’ John sank into his armchair and set the tea down.

‘Elizabeth recognised him,’ Sherlock continued, as if nothing had happened. ‘Even though the murderer didn’t look like Henry Jekyll, she knew it was him and tried to protect him when we talked to her.’

‘So...’ John said, struggling to follow his train of thought; a lost cause, he shouldn’t even have been trying, ‘he disguised himself and she knew it was him anyway? She’s helping him?’

‘No.’ Well, at least he’d tried. ‘It wasn’t a disguise. It’s impossible to disguise your height, weight, and shoe size like that.’

‘Maybe he just wore the wrong size shoes,’ John suggested.

‘No, his shoes definitely fit.’ Sherlock must have gotten that from the footprints, though how he’d done it John had no idea. Sherlock stood up. ‘We need to talk to Elizabeth again.’

‘What - right now?’

‘When else?’

‘How about when I finish my tea?’

‘Fine,’ he agreed grudgingly, sitting back down. John drank his tea, trying to enjoy it, but it was difficult with Sherlock drumming his fingers on the arm of his chair the entire time. Finally John gave up and just left the half empty mug on the coffee table. Or perhaps it was half full. Although considering they were about to go talk to an uncooperative beggar about a serial killer, optimism wasn’t exactly an option.

Sherlock jumped up as soon as he saw John was done with his tea. ‘Get your coat.’

John groaned. ‘Don’t tell me we’re walking.’

‘She doesn’t exactly have an address we can tell a cabbie. Sorry, John.’ He looked genuinely apologetic. Maybe he just didn’t want to hear John complain any more.

John groaned but put his coat on anyway.

It took them a good hour to retrace their steps to Elizabeth’s doorstep. She was reading her neuroscience book again and didn’t notice them, or managed to ignore them, until Sherlock spoke. ‘Good afternoon, Miss Elizabeth.’

‘It was good,’ she grumbled, putting a finger in the book and closing it, ‘until you showed up.’

‘Sorry to have ruined your afternoon,’ he said in such a cheerful voice that he was fooling no one by apologising.

‘You’d better have a good reason for coming back. I already told you everything I’m going to tell you about the murders.’

‘Oh, I don’t think you have at all.’ His voice was dripping with false cheer. ‘We found our man.’

She raised an eyebrow. ‘Did you.’

‘Yes. His name is Dr Henry Jekyll.’ He paused, as if waiting to see if the name would produce a reaction. It didn’t.

‘If you found him, why are you still pestering me?’ Elizabeth was looking at him like he was a bug she would like very much to squish.

‘Because there’s one slight problem.’

‘What’s that.’

‘He couldn’t have killed those five people. He doesn’t at all match the description of the murderer that I deduced from the footprints near the bishop’s body.’

‘Maybe your deductions were wrong, then,’ Elizabeth said, sounding somewhat amused. ‘Don’t worry, it happens to even the best of us sometimes.’

‘But you recognised him,’ Sherlock continued, ignoring the insult.

‘Did I?’ she replied mildly.

‘You were deliberately vague about the murderer’s appearance. Of course you knew more about it than you told us, which means you recognised him and were protecting him. But the man you recognised was not Dr Henry Jekyll. It couldn’t have been. So who was it?’

‘No idea.’

‘Don’t lie to me.’

‘I honestly have no idea.’

‘How could you have recognised a man and not have any idea who he was?’

‘Easy. Haven’t you ever heard of face recognition?’ Her voice was smug, and she was obviously enjoying herself.

‘Well then tell me. What did he look like?’

‘Have you forgotten already? Oh dear, Mr Holmes, you’re getting old. I told you what he looks like the last time you came by to bother me.’

‘You didn’t tell me all of what he looks like.’

‘Why do you need to know? I thought you caught your murderer. Dr Jekyll.’

‘Indeed. How do you know Dr Jekyll?’ Evidently Sherlock had realised that he was getting nowhere and decided to change the subject.

‘You already know that too. Don’t waste my time with questions you know the answers to.’

‘The two of you studied together at university. Chemistry and neuroscience, wasn’t that it? What do you know about his latest experiment?’

‘That depends on what his latest experiment is.’

‘Ah, you’re not currently in touch with Dr Jekyll, then.’ Sherlock sounded pleased for the first time during the conversation. ‘He’s working on a formula that will separate good from evil.’

‘It won’t work.’ She said it with a startling certainty.

‘And how would you know that?’

‘Because I’m smart.’

‘Oh, are you.’ Her eyes narrowed ever so slightly as she looked at him in a way that clearly said she had had more than enough of Sherlock’s abuse and was about to tell him so in the worst possible way she could. Which, even knowing her as little as he did, John was fairly certain was going to be cruel.

And sure enough, she took a deep breath and started in on him.

‘Yes, I am. Smart enough to know that you haven’t eaten yet today. You did have coffee this morning, though it was interrupted by a phone call telling you about the most recent murder - Lord Savage this time. You went to the scene of the crime, which was Fenchurch Street Station, then talked to Sir Danvers Carew, then took a cab to Henry Jekyll’s place, where you realised he couldn’t be the murderer, got quite agitated, and took a cab home. You recently ripped your favourite scarf on the furniture. You spent last night on the sofa with John. You really shouldn’t do that; people talk enough as it is. You care more about him than you think you do, you know.’ She grinned at John when she said that.

‘You pretend you don’t care about him, but you do,almost too much. Same with your landlady and housekeeper. She claims she isn’t your housekeeper, of course, but it’s not like you or John does any cleaning. You and your older brother don’t get along well; there is a lot of resentment between the two of you going back a long ways. He’s not really your enemy, though. That honour goes to another man, a criminal mastermind who is at least as brilliant as you. Possibly more brilliant, because you haven’t caught him yet.’ She was smiling now and looking quite cocky. Sherlock, on the other hand, looked shell shocked. Elizabeth, merciless, continued.

‘You’re suffering from a good deal of doubt about your deductions since the facts don’t match your theory. You wonder if maybe you were wrong, and you don’t like that thought at all. You always have to be right, always have to show everyone up, because you can’t stand to think that you’re no good. It’s the same reason you constantly belittle everyone else even though you want them to like you, and instead you try to make them like you with their deductions. Oh, you think you don’t care how other people see you and that it doesn’t bother you when people talk about you and John behind your back, but secretly you need their appreciation and your reputation is very important to you. You also refuse to accept help from anyone no matter how much you need it, because you don’t want to look weak. You’ve built up this whole persona - confident, strong, brilliant, emotionless Sherlock - and it’s become who you are, but deep down, you’re really a vulnerable man who relies heavily on the acceptance and love you get from John and your other friends.’ She was smirking at him now, daring him to deny any of it. John was stunned and more than a little impressed. She was saying things that had taken him ages of living with Sherlock to get any hint of, and she’d only met him twice. ‘Shall I go on?’ she asked. ‘There’s more where that came from.’

Sherlock was speechless. John didn’t blame him - he’d just had his whole personality thrown in his face by a complete stranger, and a woman to boot. That had to hurt, even for him. Amazingly, John could see it did - the wall behind his eyes that normally kept everyone from seeing what he was feeling had come down, and behind it was shock and a little bit of pain. Then it was gone and he looked like the usual Sherlock again. He was still dead silent, though.

‘Finally,’ Elizabeth said, in a tone of extreme relief. ‘I thought you’d never shut up.’ John expected Sherlock to take offense to that, make some sort of witty remark or something, but he just stood there stony-faced and took her abuse. Not that he didn’t deserve it; he needed to be humbled every now and again or his ego would inflate like a balloon and he’d become impossible. To be fair, though, she _had_ been a bit cruel.

‘Now, what was it you were asking about? Ah yes,’ she continued, not giving him a chance to answer her question. Not that he’d made any move to. John had never seen him this lost for words, and it worried him just a little. ‘Jekyll’s experiment. I knew it wouldn’t work because it was my experiment first. I was working on it at university before they kicked me out. It was why they kicked me out, incidentally. The people in charge were impressed with my work and wanted the formula for themselves, and when I refused to give it to them, they expelled me. I had to leave all my notes behind.’

John waited for Sherlock to say what he knew his friend was thinking, and when he didn’t, John said it for him. ‘Jekyll found your notes and continued the experiment, then.’

‘Yes. As you probably know, he was looking for a cure for his father’s mental illness, and he thought it might be useful.’

‘Will it be useful?’ John asked, filling in for Sherlock again. His silence was really beginning to worry John.

‘No.’ She didn’t give any further explanation than that, and John didn’t ask for one. He was considerably less adept at handling her than Sherlock was. He was desperately hoping Sherlock would snap out of it and help him soon.

‘So...none of that explains how you knew the murderer if he wasn’t Jekyll.’

‘Yes,’ said Sherlock, speaking for the first time. John could barely help sighing in relief. ‘It does. Come, John, we need to talk to Dr Jekyll again.’

‘Again? But we just talked to him a couple of hours ago! I don’t want to bother him again, he looked like he needed his rest.’

‘He won’t be resting, he’ll be working. Which is exactly what we need.’ He turned and started to walk away.

‘Be careful,’ Elizabeth said, and Sherlock turned back and watched her intently. ‘Only God can understand these things, and only Lucifer can control them.’ There was genuine concern in her eyes as she looked at Sherlock. He was silent and still for a moment. Then he nodded once, slowly, with the tiniest hint of a smile, and walked away.

‘What the hell was that about?’ John asked, catching up to him.

‘It was a warning,’ he replied. ‘She was telling me the experiment is dangerous. It had noble intent to start, but it has made Jekyll into something darker than himself - Lucifer, so to speak.’ It had been an apology of sorts, as well, but Sherlock chose not to mention that.

‘If you say so.’ John had not gotten that out of Elizabeth’s comment at all. ‘How did she know all that about you?’

‘Simple. She deduced. Same as I do.’

‘She’s good.’

‘She’s not bad,’ he admitted.

John hesitated a moment, wondering whether he should even ask his next question, and then decided he probably had better. He swallowed hard and asked, ‘What did she mean when she said you care more about me than you think you do?’

Sherlock opened his mouth, closed it, and looked away quickly. John cleared his throat, feeling awkward and wishing he hadn’t brought it up. He hoped he wasn’t blushing, because that would just make the whole situation worse. ‘Elizabeth didn’t think Dr Jekyll’s experiment would work,’ Sherlock said finally, completely changing the subject. John was alright with that. ‘It did work, just not in the way he expected.’

‘And now we’re going to go figure out what it actually did.’

‘Indeed we are.’

‘He’s not going to be happy to see us.’

‘Are people ever happy to see us, John?’

John laughed at that. ‘Lestrade is, sometimes.’

‘Lestrade doesn’t count.’

‘I’m going to tell him you said that.’

‘You go right ahead.’

‘I will.’ Still bantering, they got a cab and told the cabbie to take us to 46 Harley Street.

 

* * * * *

 

Dr Jekyll was, as John had predicted, not happy to see them. Though that might have had something to do with them having ignored his friend Utterson’s massively irritated ‘haven’t you bothered him enough for one day?’ and barged right into his house. They then proceeded to make their way through Jekyll’s house and find the lab, despite his friend following them and demanding with increasing anger that they leave at once, at which point Sherlock went straight into the lab without knocking.

Dr Jekyll was standing at a lab table covered in beakers, test tubes, and numerous hypodermic needles, among other random science instruments. Sherlock glanced at them, clearly fascinated, and John nudged him to get him to focus as Dr Jekyll whirled around. Jekyll’s expression went from shocked, to almost afraid, to angry as he set down the beaker he was holding with a carefully controlled movement. It was filled with a bright red liquid, John noticed, which matched the stain that was still on his sleeve. ‘John, I thought I told you to keep out all visitors,’ he said to Utterson, his tone irate.

‘I tried,’ Utterson said exasperatedly. ‘They wouldn’t listen to me.’

Jekyll sighed. ‘It’s all right. I’ll talk to them.’ Utterson nodded and left the lab. Jekyll turned to Sherlock and John. ‘What do you two want this time?’

‘We’re curious about this experiment of yours,’ Sherlock said, picking up the beaker of red liquid that Jekyll had set down a moment earlier. He swirled it around and watched it with fascination. ‘Tell us what it does.’

‘You already know. Separation of good and evil.’

‘That’s what it’s supposed to do. What does it actually do, though?’

‘Why do you want to know?’ He sounded suspicious.

‘Professional curiosity. I’m a chemist myself.’

‘He leaves his experiments all over the kitchen,’ John added, feeling like he needed a word in before they started talking about chemistry and he got lost. Sherlock gave John a sharp look, which he ignored, and even Dr Jekyll raised an eyebrow.

‘Who knows,’ Sherlock went on, still transfixed by whatever chemical he was holding and completely skipping over John’s comment. ‘I might even be able to help you with it.’

Jekyll hesitated, then, apparently having resolved some internal conflict, said softly, ‘I call it formula HJ7.’ Sherlock put the beaker down, and Dr Jekyll picked it up. He seemed to be equally fascinated by it, though in a much different way than Sherlock.

‘Your initials,’ Sherlock said with a hint of disdain. ‘Cute.’

Jekyll seemed not to notice the insult. ‘I’ve been working on this project for seven years,’ he said, sounding a bit lost in his memories. ‘I developed the formula only recently. I intended to test it on a human subject, but the Board of Governors refused to allow it.’

‘You tested it on yourself, didn’t you,’ Sherlock said wryly. ‘You’re a doctor, you should know better than that.’ John cocked an eyebrow in Sherlock’s direction at the hypocrisy; Sherlock would be the first to test something on himself even if he had another test subject. Once again, though, Sherlock ignored John. He was rather too good at that.

‘I had no one else to test it on,’ Jekyll said, ‘and I couldn’t let seven years of work go to waste, not when I was so close to discovering the cure for my father’s illness. It was the only option.’

‘I hope you at least stuck to scientific protocol enough to keep careful observations as the experiment progressed,’ Sherlock said, more than a little condescending despite Jekyll’s technical superiority in the field. The beaker containing the chemical - which was presumably formula HJ7 - sat on the table between them. Its crimson colour was shockingly like blood.

‘I kept a diary of it,’ Dr Jekyll replied, touching a little black book at his elbow. It was open with a pen sitting on top of it.

‘I don’t suppose you would let me read it.’

‘No.’ Jekyll’s voice was firm. ‘I could explain the experiment to you, though.’ Sherlock gave a gesture which clearly meant “go ahead.”

‘As you know,  I was looking for the cure to the mental illness my father has.’ Sherlock nodded impatiently, obviously wanting Jekyll to skip to the part he _didn’t_ know. ‘My theory was that his condition derived from the evil inside him, the evil with which all mankind is born. A bit...medieval, I know, but I thought if I could somehow separate that evil from the good which everyone also has inside them, I could destroy the evil and cure him.’ Jekyll still sounded weary, but his voice seemed to have gained some strength now as he explained his experiment to us. Clearly he had been passionate about this before whatever hell he’d been dragged through. ‘I was at a loss for some time as to how to actually do this, but then I came across a colleague’s research on the duality of man, as well as notes on the development of a formula that seemed capable of doing exactly what I wanted.’ Sherlock and John exchanged a look. Those were undoubtedly Elizabeth’s notes.

‘The notes were incomplete,’ Jekyll continued, ‘as my colleague was unable to finish her research, but there was enough information there for me to carry on her work myself. I was able to create and refine a formula that would, if it worked, separate good from evil. By the thirteenth of this month, I was ready to test my formula. On that day I took my proposal to the Board of Governors at St Jude’s Hospital hoping to get approval to test my formula on a human being, but my proposition was rejected five votes to none.’

‘Yes, why don’t you skip the parts we already know and tell us about what happened when you tested your formula on yourself,’ Sherlock suggested impatiently.

Dr Jekyll shot him an irritated look. It was the closest thing to normal emotion John had seen out of him since they had met earlier that morning. It seemed that for once Sherlock’s characteristic rudeness was doing someone some good. ‘It was that night,’ he said. ‘I had no idea what I was going to do after being rejected by the Board of Governors. But then my friend took me out to a pub for a bachelor party, and I met a girl there who inadvertently showed me the answer.’

Sherlock raised his eyebrows. ‘Getting married, are you?’

Dr Jekyll nodded. ‘In less than five weeks’ time.’

‘Congratulations,’ John said, to make up for the lack of interest he knew Sherlock would have.

‘Thank you.’ Jekyll sighed. ‘Anyway, that night I injected myself with the formula. At first there was little real effect, but then...something happened. There was a change. In me. It was agonising, and when I looked in the mirror afterwards, I was not myself. Quite literally; my physical appearance had changed and I had a completely different personality. I had become the physical embodiment of the evil in myself.’

Understanding had dawned on Sherlock’s face as Dr Jekyll had spoken. ‘You are the murderer, then.’

‘Not me. I was not lying when I said that Dr Henry Jekyll did not kill anyone. My...other side...calls himself Edward Hyde. It must have been him’

‘You admit to the murders, then.’

‘For the last time, it was Hyde, not me.’

‘You _are_ Hyde,’ Sherlock pointed out.

Jekyll blanched, sitting down hard on a lab stool through what appeared to be no agency of his own. ‘That’s what he says, too.’

‘You talk to him, then?’ Sherlock sounded far too interested for his own good.

‘Sometimes. He...well. The experiment is taking a turn I had not anticipated. At first I only transformed into Hyde, and back into myself, with the injection of the formula. Recently, though, the transformations have begun occurring of their own accord.’

‘And you have no control over Hyde?’

‘None whatsoever. He does what he pleases.’

‘Do you and he share any memories?’

‘Some. I can remember some of the things he does, and he seems to know all of my friends and family members, but my memory of his actions is extremely vague. I was not even aware that he had murdered the Governors until this morning.’ Jekyll frowned. ‘I’ve no clue why he would do that, though; he seems to delight in torturing me otherwise.’

‘You mean to tell me that Hyde could be running amok in the city of London at any given time, with complete control over you, and leaving no memory of what he does in your mind?’ Sherlock asked. Jekyll was looking sick, but he nodded. ‘That sounds like a bit of a dangerous situation to me. More people could be killed.’ Jekyll nodded again. Telling his story seemed to have exhausted him beyond speaking. ‘What are you going to do about it?’ Sherlock asked.

Jekyll was silent for a long, long moment. ‘I have no idea,’ he said finally, his voice so soft John could barely make out his words. ‘I thought maybe that when I had had enough I would simply...end it.’

‘No,’ John said forcefully, causing both Sherlock and Jekyll to turn to him in surprise and shocking even himself. ‘There’s another solution,’ John continued, a little more gently. ‘There’s always another solution.’

‘What would you have me do?’ Jekyll asked, and John could hear the despair in his voice, the complete hopelessness.

‘I don’t know,’ John had to admit. ‘You’re a chemist, make another formula or something.’ He was fighting the urge to call it a potion; he had been since they had started talking about it. He knew science could do seemingly impossible things - as a doctor, he had done some of them himself - but this was so far fetched it couldn’t help but seem magical.

Sherlock and Dr Jekyll exchanged a glance. ‘Is that possible?’ Sherlock asked. ‘Creating an antidote to your formula?’

‘No,’ Jekyll said immediately. ‘It was the first thing I tried.’

‘You made a formula,’ said Sherlock slowly, almost impressed by the incredible stupidity of this otherwise brilliant man, ‘for which you knew there was no antidote.’ Jekyll, evidently ashamed, didn’t respond. Sherlock held out a hand to him imperiously. ‘Give me your notes.’

‘I can’t.’

‘It’s about the only thing you _can_ do. Don’t worry, I won’t steal them; I’m smarter than that.’ Sherlock’s every word dripped with condemnation.

Jekyll stared at Sherlock for a long moment, so long John thought he was going to have to gently intervene in order to persuade Jekyll, but finally Jekyll said, ‘Alright.’

He opened up the black book and flipped through the pages, pulling out a stack of folded and well-used sheets of paper. He unfolded them and spread them out across the table, and John could see they were covered in tiny writing, equations, diagrams, and various other scientific gibberish all neatly written down in black ink. Most of it made no sense to him - just because I’d gone to medical school didn’t mean he understood complex synthetic chemistry - but he caught the names of a few chemicals he recognised, ones used in prescription medications. Some of them, he noticed, were powerful and hard to obtain.

Sherlock walked around to the other side of the lab bench, and the three of them bent over the pages, looking for something that could help. ‘Here,’ Sherlock said after ten or fifteen long minutes, stabbing a long white finger into the page. Just in time, too; John was starting to get a fierce crick in his neck. Jekyll saw where Sherlock was pointing and looked up in shock, a question in his eyes.

‘You think --’ he started.

‘It could work,’ Sherlock said with a nod, ‘especially considering your use of ergotamine here...’ And thus commenced an extremely long discussion of which John understood maybe one word out of twenty. The conversation dragged on for hours. At first John tried to follow it, but after a while he was pretty sure they stopped speaking English, so he tuned out, wandering the lab and examining vials of chemicals. Jekyll had nearly as many different chemicals as the lab at St Bart’s did, and twice as many random skulls. Sherlock fit right in here, looking quite at home as he and Jekyll scribbled notes and formulae on random bits of paper.

Hours passed. Dinner time came and went, and still neither of them showed any signs of being ready to stop. They were developing a new formula, one that would presumably counteract the original one and return Dr Jekyll to being himself instead of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. When John tuned back into the conversation, almost three hours after it had started, they were discussing proper procedure.

‘Sherlock,’ John said, feeling somewhat awkward about breaking their intense concentration.

He and Jekyll looked up, both of them looking somewhat irritated at the interruption. ‘What is it, John?’ Sherlock replied.

‘It’s half eight.’

Both men checked the time in surprise. ‘So it is,’ said Jekyll. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to keep you two here so long.’

‘It was my pleasure,’ Sherlock assured him, and, for once, actually meant the phrase sincerely. ‘I think we’re done here for today, though. I’ll get the last few chemicals we need and bring them tomorrow.’

Jekyll shook his head. ‘That won’t work. Some of them are hard to come by, and Bisset - the man I normally buy them from - won’t sell them to just anyone. I’ll have to get them myself.’

Sherlock nodded his understanding. ‘I’ll be back tomorrow in any case,’ he said. ‘Around eleven.’

‘I’ll be here.’ He smiled, just a bit. It was a smile that had once been vibrant and alive but now seemed on the verge of death. ‘Thank you for your help, Mr Holmes.’

‘As I said, the pleasure is all mine.’ The two chemists shook hands, and Sherlock and John showed themselves out. John looked back over his shoulder to see Jekyll seated at the lab bench, his brow furrowed, writing something on a fresh sheet of paper.


	10. Chapter Ten

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I lied about the regular schedule thing again... Finals week sucks. But hey! We've reached the penultimate chapter!

‘Why are you helping Dr Jekyll?’ John asked Sherlock over dinner that night - a microwaved bowl of canned soup. Sherlock had gotten rid of the slides from the eye study that had been in the microwave last time, thank goodness.

‘We have to get rid of the murderer somehow,’ Sherlock answered. He was reclining in the other kitchen chair. He’d been in remarkably good spirits ever since they had gotten home from Dr Jekyll’s house, probably because he had not only found his murderer but also gotten to do mad science experiments in a lab full of skulls. ‘We couldn’t exactly arrest poor Jekyll. He may have been stupid enough to test his formula on himself, but that’s hardly a reason to send someone to jail.’

‘Don’t give me that,’ John said. ‘You would have done the same if you were in his place without thinking twice and you know it.’

Sherlock ignored that, probably because he couldn’t deny it. ‘In any case, this is the better alternative to arresting a man who is technically innocent. If we can reverse the experiment, Hyde will disappear forever. No more murderer means no more murders. The case will be closed.’

‘We still have to tell Lestrade something, though. And if we tell him the truth, it could be very bad for Dr Jekyll.’

‘If we lie to him, it could be very bad for us,’ Sherlock pointed out. ‘We can have him say in the official report that Hyde jumped in the river when we were chasing him. The public never has to know.’

‘And that’s the only reason you’re helping him?’ John asked, dubiously. ‘You’re not doing it because you feel sympathy for him and what he’s been through over the course of this experiment? Or because you love having an excuse to mix some chemicals together?’

Sherlock laughed. ‘You know me too well, John. Yes, the experiment has some interest to me as a scientist, and it is a neat little problem that I should very much like to solve.’

‘Well, just be careful you don’t get too wrapped up in it. You heard Elizabeth’s warning, about Lucifer and God and whatever else she said.’

Sherlock smiled, just a little. ‘I remember.’

‘You should listen to her.’

‘Yes, she does seem to know what she’s talking about, doesn’t she?’ That statement had a double meaning, and John knew it. He was glad to see Sherlock wasn’t angry about Elizabeth’s deductions, though. As mean as it had been, he _had_  had it coming.

‘Right,’ John said, finishing his soup and standing up, ‘I’m going to bed.’

Sherlock looked a bit surprised. ‘This early?’

‘It’s nine thirty. And I’m still sick. Unless you wanted me to stay up?’

Sherlock held John’s gaze for a brief moment, then looked away. ‘No, go to bed. We can’t have you getting sick again.’

‘Maybe you should have thought about that before you started leaving tetanus infected frogs on the kitchen table,’ John said, but his tone was light. He washed my bowl and put it away. The kitchen was still almost as clean as it had been when Mrs Hudson had sent us on our forced cleaning spree, and John was pretty proud of it. ‘Goodnight, Sherlock.’

‘Goodnight, John. Don’t forget we’re going back to Dr Jekyll’s at eleven.’

‘Why do I need to come?’ John asked. ‘I don’t understand most of what you two talk about. I’ll only be in the way.’

‘You were the one who came up with the idea of another formula in the first place,’ Sherlock pointed out. ‘And if it weren’t for you, Dr Jekyll and I would have been in his lab working for another week. You are indispensable as a companion, John. Of course you’re coming.’

‘Right,’ John said after a moment. That was uncharacteristically...nice...of Sherlock.

The detective made a shooing motion. ‘Go to bed.’

John started to go, then turned. ‘Are you just going to sit here and stare into space all night?’

‘It’s not staring into space, it’s thinking.’

‘They look the same to me.’

Sherlock ignored him, and John went off to bed, still not sure what to think.

 

* * * **

 

Sherlock was still sitting at the kitchen table when John wandered in for coffee the next morning around ten. He wasn’t moving, wasn’t even blinking, just staring at one spot on the wall. He looked like a statue. ‘Sherlock?’ John asked.

Sherlock blinked and slowly turned his head to look at John. ‘I was in my mind palace, John,’ he said reproachfully.

‘Sorry,’ John said. He wasn’t really sorry. ‘Coffee?’

‘Please.’

‘Did you sleep at all?’ John asked as he started the coffee.

‘I don’t know. Possibly.’

‘In other words, no.’ He didn’t respond to that.

They drank their coffee at their leisure for probably the first time since the Bishop of Basingstoke’s murder. It was nice, just sitting around and chatting about things that were unrelated to crime and drinking coffee like normal flatmates would instead of rushing to the scene of yet another graphic murder. Sherlock was even in a normal sort of mood despite having not slept and John interrupting his mind palace time. Well, as normal as Sherlock got, which was still pretty far from it, but John took what he could get.

After breakfast, they took a cab over to Dr Jekyll’s house. For once they weren’t accosted by Utterson but instead made it down to the lab without incident. Jekyll was sitting at his lab table, all of his papers and notes where they had left them last night. He was staring at the beaker that contained formula HJ7 and looking worse than ever. John guessed he probably hadn’t slept since they’d last seen him either.

‘Good morning,’ Jekyll said dully as they came in. ‘I don’t have the chemicals yet. It will probably be tomorrow afternoon at the earliest before I can get them.’

‘That’s fine,’ Sherlock assured him. ‘Is there anything else we can do without them?’ He was being surprisingly gentle with Jekyll; John wasn’t used to seeing that from him.

‘No,’ Jekyll said dejectedly. ‘I can contact you when I have them, though.’

Sherlock agreed to that, and the two men exchanged phone numbers before Sherlock and John left.

‘Now what?’ John asked as they stood on the sidewalk outside Jekyll’s house waiting for a cab.

‘Back to the flat.’

When they got home, Sherlock went straight to the kitchen and started shoving beakers and test tubes and other equipment around on the table. He found a few he wanted and set them down in the open space.

‘What are you doing?’ John asked, watching as he rapidly reorganised things.

‘Experimenting,’ he replied. ‘I have nothing better to do.’

‘Okay. I’m going to go update my blog.’

‘No you’re not. I need you to run an errand for me.’

John groaned. ‘Can’t you do it yourself?’

‘I’m busy. Experimenting.’

‘Which you just said you were doing because you had nothing better to do!’ Sherlock just continued rearranging his mini lab. Exasperated, John conceded. ‘Fine. What do you need.’

Sherlock fired off a rapid series of chemical names. John blinked once, shook his head, and said, ‘Can you say that in English, please?’

Sherlock gave John a look. ‘How many years of medical school did you say you went to, John?’

‘More than you. I just didn’t study much chemistry. So if you want any of those things, I suggest you write them down for me.’

Sherlock didn’t look happy about it, but he did write out a list. His spidery handwriting made it almost harder to understand than when he’d spoken it, especially considering that even once John deciphered the words, he had no idea what they meant. Or any idea where to get them. John had the idea he was in for a pretty miserable afternoon.

John walked most of the afternoon, looking for a shop that might sell weird, unpronounceable, and possibly dangerous chemicals. He found none. He remembered Jekyll saying his usual source was someone called Bisset, but John had about as much luck finding this elusive chemical dealer as they had had finding a specific prostitute the first day of this case, with the difference being that they’d actually found the prostitute. Finally John decided just to go to St Bartholomew’s and see if Molly would lend him some chemicals under the table.

John found Molly in the morgue with a body. At first she was understandably hesitant to help, since it could get her fired if anyone found out, but when John told her it was for Sherlock she reluctantly agreed. John left the hospital with a bag full of chemicals, praying the entire walk back to the flat that none of them would spill inside the bag and cause a chemical reaction that could kill him. That sort of thing didn’t look very good in an obituary.

Miraculously, John made it back without any sort of disaster and unloaded the chemicals onto the kitchen table. ‘There,’ he said, slamming down flask after flask, all carefully sealed, onto the table, ‘are all of the bloody chemicals you asked for. You’re welcome.’

‘Thank you, John,’ Sherlock said, selecting a flask, opening it, and measuring its contents into an empty beaker. He looked with concern at the flasks John was banging unceremoniously onto the table. ‘Do be careful with those.’

‘Anything else you want?’ John asked, outright irritation in his voice.

‘Actually, yes.’ John groaned. Sherlock frowned, finally seeming to pick up on his friend’s foul mood. ‘What is it?’

‘I just walked all over London for three hours looking for your bloody chemicals and now you want me to go get you something else? What am I, the errand boy?’ John was trying to keep his voice down, but he was tired and a bit fed up.

‘I was going to ask if you’d run to the cafe next door and pick up some sandwiches, actually,’ Sherlock said mildly.

All the anger drained out of John. ‘Right. Sure. I can do that.’ And without another word, he left the flat again, feeling like an idiot.

They ate lunch, Sherlock with a sandwich in one hand and a flask in the other, still mixing things together. John stood as far across the kitchen as he could, hopefully out of range of any potential explosions, and watched to make sure Sherlock didn’t accidentally get the hand with the sandwich and the hand with the dangerous chemical mixed up. It was a legitimate concern; there were at least three times John had to break his concentration so he didn’t down whatever he was holding.

After lunch, Sherlock sent John out on another errand, and he went without complaint, still feeling bad about going off about the sandwiches. This time was to the library for a book Sherlock needed for some equations or formulas or some such. It took John ages to locate it, hiding between a very old book about alchemy and a book on metaphysics. John checked it out and then spent the walk home flipping through it, trying to find a word he recognised that wasn’t “the” and failing rather spectacularly.

No sooner had he got home and handed Sherlock the book than he’d sent John back out on another ridiculous mission, and another, and another. John spent the entire afternoon running back and forth across London getting things for his flatmate’s experiment while Sherlock sat at the kitchen table and played mad scientist, and by the time John got back from the last errand he was worn out and ready to collapse.

‘What experiment are you doing, anyway?’ John asked, flopping down into a chair in the kitchen and kicking off his shoes.

‘If I tell you, you’ll only ask me to repeat it in English. I’ll save myself the trouble, thanks.’ Sherlock didn’t even look at John as he spoke, just added a few drops of some chemical to the large beaker in front of him. The mixture inside smoked and turned bright red as the chemical hit it. John frowned. The colour was familiar.

‘Sherlock...’ John said in a warning tone. ‘You aren’t trying to recreate Dr Jekyll’s formula, are you?’

‘He wouldn’t show me all of his notes,’ Sherlock replied. ‘I don’t have the entire formula.’

‘But you’re figuring it out, aren’t you,’ John asked. Sherlock didn’t answer, and John took his silence as a yes. ‘Sherlock, Elizabeth said it was dangerous.’

‘It would be boring if it wasn’t.’

‘Like, God and Lucifer dangerous. You saw what this very experiment did to Dr Jekyll.’

‘He injected himself with it. I haven’t.’

‘Yet.’ Sherlock ignored John and kept working. John snatched the beaker from his hand. ‘Sherlock, no. We don’t need an evil alter ego of you roaming London. The “good” you is hard enough to deal with.’

‘John --’

‘Absolutely not. It’s too dangerous. I don’t want what happened to Dr Jekyll to happen to you.’ And with one swift movement, John poured the contents of the beaker down the kitchen sink.

There was a tense silence in the kitchen for a moment. John was worried Sherlock was going to be cross with him for ruining his experiment, but to his surprise, Sherlock laughed. ‘Well, there’s a day’s work wasted,’ he said. ‘Make sure you run water down the sink now.’

John followed his instruction. There was a sizzling sound, and a small tendril of smoke rose up from the drain. John eyed it warily. ‘That isn’t going to explode or anything, is it?’

‘It shouldn’t.’ He was still laughing.

‘Because that’s ever so comforting.’ John continued to watch the smoke, and Sherlock continued to laugh. ‘What’s so funny?’

‘You, John.’

‘How am I funny?’

‘You just are.’ He stopped laughing but was still smiling. John still didn’t see what he’d done that was funny.

‘You aren’t angry with me?’ John asked tentatively.

‘Of course not. You did what you thought was right. In any case, I have all the ingredients written down. That was the completed formula.’ Sherlock stood and started cleaning up the remnants of his experiment.

‘What if you’d gotten it wrong? It could have killed you.’

Sherlock shrugged. ‘Scientists have to take risks, or else nothing would ever get discovered.’ He chuckled again. ‘You’re probably right, though. Lestrade would have been furious if I ended up like Dr Jekyll and started murdering people.’

‘And Donovan would have a field day,’ John added. Sherlock finished putting away his chemicals and turned to John.

‘Takeout?’

‘Absolutely.’

 

* * * * *

 

They spent the rest of that evening and most of the next day doing absolutely nothing of consequence. John read a book and updated his blog, Sherlock watched cop shows and solved all of the crimes within the first five minutes, and Mrs Hudson berated them both for the state of the kitchen table. All in all, a normal day at 221B.

Dr Jekyll called Sherlock around eight thirty at night to tell him he had the chemicals, and the two men got a cab over. It was an unusual hour, but Sherlock insisted they go now and get the formula made before the situation escalated any further. John thought he was more anxious to continue his mad scientist work than he was over the actual situation, but he didn’t argue.

Dr Jekyll was sitting in an armchair in the far corner of the lab. His head was in his hands, his fingers tangled into his dark hair, and his clothes were in an even shabbier state than they’d been in yesterday morning. His left sleeve was pulled up and John could see multiple puncture wounds in the crook of his arm where he’d injected himself with the formula. One of them was very recent; a bead of blood welled up as John watched. Hunched over like that, Jekyll looked broken and defeated and small.

‘Dr Jekyll?’ John said gently. He lifted his head just a little to look at Sherlock and Him. Despair was written in lines on his face and in his empty eyes. ‘What happened?’ John asked.

‘Hyde,’ he said, and his voice came out as a dry rasp. He cleared his throat and tried again. ‘Hyde took control again, just before John - Utterson, I mean -  came with the chemicals. I had asked him to pick them up.’ His voice sounded sort of dead. ‘John demanded to see me, and Hyde told him I was unavailable, but he insisted. So Hyde...injected himself with the formula. He transformed back into me right in front of John.’

‘So he knows about you and Hyde now?’ John asked. Jekyll nodded. ‘Well, that’s good,’ John said, trying to sound upbeat. ‘Maybe he can help you, too.’

Jekyll shook his head. ‘No. He should stay out of it. Hyde is...Hyde could...’ He stopped and raked his hand through his hair. ‘I am dangerous,’ he finished in a tormented voice.

‘Not for long, you’re not,’ Sherlock said. ‘It won’t take us long to complete this formula.’

With a visible effort, Jekyll pulled himself together. John offered him his hand and helped him out of his chair, and he went and stood at the table with Sherlock, who was already getting things set up. John took Jekyll’s seat in the armchair and watched the two of them work - Sherlock with his swift, sure hands, pouring chemicals like it was all he ever did; Jekyll with trembling but equally experienced hands that steadied increasingly as the night went on. Slowly but surely the formula came together.

Finally, at around eleven that night, Dr Jekyll added the last drops of chemical to the formula. Just like Sherlock’s experiment that afternoon, it sizzled and smoked and turned a vivid red. There was more smoke this time, though, and the colour was deeper, more like the spot of blood that Jekyll still had not cleaned off his arm. John wondered if he even knew it was there and even considered bringing it up but didn’t want to break Jekyll’s concentration.

‘There,’ Sherlock said with satisfaction as the smoke cleared and the formula settled down a bit. ‘Now it needs to sit for around two hours, and then no more Mr Hyde.’

Dr Jekyll almost smiled. ‘I can’t thank you enough,’ he said.

‘Then don’t bother,’ Sherlock said. ‘Let’s go home, John.’

John couldn’t have agreed more. He stood up and followed Sherlock out of the lab, turning back on his way out to say, ‘Take care of yourself, Dr Jekyll.’

‘Please, call me Henry,’ he said with another attempt at a smile that came out looking almost recognisable as one. ‘And I always try.’

‘Let us know how it goes,’ John said.

‘I’ll be in touch.’

‘Goodnight,’ John said, and added, ‘Henry.’

 

* * * * *

 

_‘Lucy, my dear,’ the man’s voice purred from the shadows. He tossed his tattered hat off to the corner of the room, creeping towards the girl. The girl started and nearly fell out of the bed she’d been sitting on in her haste to get away from her sudden visitor. ‘You weren’t expecting me?’_

_‘N-no,’ she stammered, pulling her dressing gown around her and hiding behind her hair._

_He approached her, bearing down on her and forcing her to look at him. ‘But who else can I come to for sympathy...tenderness...’ He reached out and stroked her curly hair, bunching it up in his fist and then releasing it. She shuddered. He caught sight of a piece of paper clutched tightly in her hands. ‘You’ve had another visitor this evening.’_

_‘No, not really, I--’ He snatched the paper from her hands and wandered away out of her reach._

_‘Was it the good doctor himself?’ he cut her off. ‘No, it can’t be. Dr Jekyll is such a...busy man...’ Hyde gave a dark chuckle._

_Her surprise overcame her fear for a moment as she asked, ‘You know Dr Jekyll?’_

_‘Like I know myself,’ he answered cheerily. ‘We’re like brothers, he and I. We share everything.’ His mouth slowly twisted into a grin as he added, ‘Just as you and I do, my sweet Lucy._ Everything _.’ He looked down at the letter, reading aloud in a mocking voice, ‘“Leave this place, I beg you.”’ Hyde gave an evil smirk and then with a flick of his wrist let the letter drift out of the window, where the rain took hold of it and dragged it down to the soaking streets of London. ‘You wouldn’t really think of leaving the city without saying goodbye, would you?’_

_‘I’m not going anywhere.’ Her voice was subdued but defiant._

_‘That’s right, Lucy,’ he said, his voice smooth as silk but much deadlier. He took hold of her wrist. ‘You’re not going_ anywhere _.’ His voice was suddenly vicious as  he threw her to the ground and sat down on her bed. ‘Come to me now,’ he said, more gently than ever. She barely moved. ‘Close.’ She moved this time, closer to him but still just out of his reach. He beckoned with a finger. ‘Closer.’ Reluctantly, she moved so that she was on her knees on the ground, her back to him. He began to play with her hair, stroking it and twisting it around his gnarled fingers. ‘Sympathy, tenderness, warm as the summer,’ he crooned, almost singing, ‘offer me their embrace...’ His fingers were moving closer and closer to her neck. ‘Friendliness, gentleness...’ His fingers wrapped one by one around her neck and tightened. ‘Strangers to my life, they are there in his face.’ She made a shocked little sound as Hyde’s grip grew stronger. With a sudden, violent movement, he picked her up by the neck and dumped her on the bed._

_His hands were pressing ever harder into her throat. ‘Goodness and sweetness...’ A savage grin spread over his face as the expression on hers became more and more panicked. She kicked and struggled and scratched at his hands, but to no avail. ‘...and kindness...’ Her movements were weakening, her eyes rolling back in her head. ‘...abound in this place,’ he finished as she fell still. He let go of her. There were purple bruises blossoming on her white skin in the shapes of his hands. He straightened up and laughed. It was a bone chilling, purely evil laugh, a sound like all the demons of Hell rejoicing. Then, abruptly, it cut off as Hyde doubled over in pain and crashed to the ground. With a choking sound, his back arched and suddenly he was gone, leaving Jekyll in his place._

_For a moment, he lay still on the ground, breathing hard, unsure of where he was. He sat up and looked around, realisation dawning on his face. Slowly, he stood, as if the weight of a thousand crosses rested on his shoulders, and made his way over to the bed. He got up onto it and crouched over Lucy’s perfectly still form. One shaking hand reached out and stroked her face as he whispered brokenly, ‘No.’ He repeated the word over and over, in a shaking, devastated voice so that it was more a sob than a word. ‘No...no...oh god no...’ His body shook with silent sobs as tears rolled from his cheeks and splashed like rain on Lucy’s face._

_Abruptly he jerked up and moved away from her body. One of his hands went to his face and the other knotted itself up in his hair as he drew in a gasping breath and fled the room, leaving Lucy alone._

 

* * * * *

 

Sherlock’s phone rang in the middle of breakfast. They had actually cooked that morning - well, John had made eggs and toast - and were looking forward to a day completely devoid of murder and strange formulas. John was, at least; he couldn’t speak for Sherlock.

Sherlock checked the number and picked it up. ‘Did you use it?’ he asked, and John gathered he was talking to Dr Jekyll - Henry, he reminded himself. A long pause, and then, ‘Where is she?’ Another pause. ‘Alright. I’ll take care of it.’ He hung up and turned to John. ‘Hyde struck again.’

‘Who? Sir Danvers? The other one - the secretary?’ They were the only two remaining members of the Board of Governors.

‘Neither,’ he answered. ‘It’s a girl; a prostitute, actually. She worked at the Red Rat. Apparently her name was Lucy and Hyde rather fancied her. So did Jekyll, it would seem.’

‘And Hyde killed her last night?’

‘Yes. Jekyll had his friend take her a letter and some money so she could leave London and be safe from him, but Hyde went to see her anyway.’

‘Are we telling Lestrade about this one?’

‘We’re going to have to. Jekyll asked me to keep it away from the press, though, and I think we can manage that.’

‘So we’re going to go take care of her body, then?’ Sherlock nodded and sipped his coffee. ‘No deductions to make this time.’

‘No, indeed. We have our murderer.’

‘What happened to him?’ John asked. ‘Did Henry use the new formula?’

‘Yes, but not before Hyde had killed Lucy.’

John sighed. ‘How did he sound?’

‘Hm?’

‘Henry. Did he sound okay?’

‘How should I know?’

‘Perhaps we should go see him. Try to comfort him a little.’

‘Why?’

‘His evil alter ego just killed a woman, Sherlock,’ John said sternly. ‘He’s got to be taking that rather hard.’

‘Ah,’ Sherlock said in a tone that made it clear he didn’t understand why that would be.

John finished his coffee and stood up. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Let’s call Lestrade and go take care of this Lucy.’

 

Lucy, it turned out, had lived in an apartment above the Red Rat. Lestrade, Sherlock, and John found her lying on her bed with finger-shaped bruises encircling her neck. John had filled Lestrade in briefly over the phone, and he had agreed to do what he could to keep this one from making it into next morning’s paper. John watched in solemn silence as the few officers Lestrade had brought with him carried Lucy’s body out of the pub.

‘So this...Hyde...did this, then?’ Lestrade asked after a moment.

‘Yes,’ Sherlock confirmed. ‘He’s strayed a bit from his usual methods, but it’s the same killer.’

‘Why did he kill her?’ Lestrade asked in confusion. ‘He was going after the Board of Governors, and there are still two left.’

‘They didn’t vote against Jekyll’s proposition,’ Sherlock explained. ‘Sir Danvers abstained, and Stride the secretary didn’t get a vote. From what Jekyll said, it sounded like Hyde killed Lucy because she was trying to leave him.’

‘That’s hardly a reason to kill someone,’ John said.

‘Does a madman need a reason?’ Sherlock pointed out, and he had a good point.

‘What are we going to do about Hyde, then?’ Lestrade asked. ‘We can’t exactly arrest him. He has the perfect alibi.’

‘We were thinking we could lie and say he jumped in the river while being chased or something,’ John said. ‘It’s true enough. Hyde may not be dead, but we’re not going to be hearing from him again.’

‘I certainly hope not,’ Lestrade said.

‘We won’t,’ Sherlock said confidently. ‘The formula will make sure of that. Edward Hyde is nothing but a nightmare now.’

‘I’m going to take your word for it,’ Lestrade said. He didn’t sound convinced. ‘If I say he was dead and he shows up again, I could lose my job for lying in an official report.’

‘Don’t worry,’ John tried to assure him. ‘Sherlock and Dr Jekyll are experienced chemists. I’m sure their formula worked.’

Lestrade still looked a bit skeptical - the fact that Sherlock had had a hand in remedying this case had probably done nothing to reassure him, and might even have had the opposite effect - but he nodded. ‘I’ll take care of it, then,’ he said.

‘Thank you.’ John sighed. ‘We should go see Henry now,’ he added to Sherlock.

‘If we must,’ he agreed, a bit reluctantly.

‘We must,’ John insisted. Sherlock was being oddly uncooperative about going to see Henry, even though the two of them had gotten on well enough while working on the formula. Perhaps it was just the fact that he was going to have to pretend to feel sorry for Henry.

They found Henry in his lab as usual, though he didn’t seem to be doing any work, just sitting in his armchair with a vacant expression on his face and intense pain in his eyes. He didn’t even look up as they came in. John noticed red scratches on the backs of his hands and wondered where they had come from.

‘Hello, Henry,’ John said gently. Slowly Henry raised his head and looked at John. ‘I’m sorry about what happened last night.’ Henry’s stony facade collapsed and the pain in his eyes spread over his whole face. John immediately regretted bringing it up. ‘But you don’t have to worry anymore, right?’ John continued quickly, moving on to something a little more positive. ‘The formula will make sure you’re rid of Hyde forever.’

‘If it works,’ Henry said. His voice had the hoarse sound of someone who had been crying, and indeed John could see tear streaks still on his pale face. He got the distinct feeling Henry hadn’t slept all night.

‘It will work,’ Sherlock said firmly, surprising John. ‘The formula we made is perfect.’ Ah. It wasn’t about him trying to make Henry feel better, it was all about the chemistry. Of course

‘What if it isn’t, though?’

‘It is,’ John assured him. ‘I have every bit of faith in Sherlock’s chemistry skills, and in yours, and I have no doubt that this will all end well.’

Henry didn’t look the least bit convinced. John didn’t blame him, really, after everything he’d been through at the hands of Mr Hyde and, by extension, himself. ‘If you say so.’ He heaved a sigh. ‘Look, John. Sherlock. I appreciate you two coming over to check on me but I’d just... If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to be...alone for a while.’

John nodded. ‘I understand. If you need anything, just give us a call, okay?’

‘Thank you.’ His voice sounded a bit strained. ‘For everything,’ he added. ‘And I’m sorry I dragged you into this.’

‘Don’t be,’ John said.

‘It was my pleasure,’ Sherlock added.

John shot him a look. ‘We’re glad we were able to help you.’ John grabbed Sherlock’s arm - he had gotten distracted by the array of chemicals on one of the many shelves - and led him to the door.

‘I’ll let you know what happens,’ he said. ‘With...with Hyde.’ He seemed uncomfortable saying the name. Sherlock gave him a curt nod, and they left him alone.

‘I’m worried about him,’ John confided to Sherlock as they left the house.

‘Weren’t you paying attention, John?’ His voice was slightly irritated. ‘The formula will work. There is nothing to worry about.’

‘Except his emotional state,’ John said. ‘You saw him, Sherlock. Even you had to notice he was looking pretty depressed.’

‘Judging from the tear streaks on his face, the shabby state of his clothing, and the general disorder of his appearance and that of the lab, yes, he is depressed. However, there was nothing to indicate that he was thinking of harming himself. He’s a doctor,’ Sherlock commented as they got into a cab. ‘They’re strong people.’

John spent the rest of the drive home wondering if he was supposed to feel flattered.


	11. Chapter Eleven

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, guys, the last chapter!! Thanks for bearing with me through this, it's been about a million times more successful than I ever hoped it would be. Hope you enjoyed it!

‘Sherlock, we’re out of lettuce again,’ John called as he opened the refrigerator and pulled out the bread and lunch meat.

‘Then go buy some more,’ Sherlock replied lazily. He hadn’t budged from his armchair all morning; he had assumed his thinking position and John had mostly left him alone to work out whatever little puzzle he was currently thinking about.

‘You could do it. Help out around here for a change.’

‘Need I remind you which one of us earned the five digit paycheck last week?’

He didn’t need to. It had been him, and he had been holding it over John’s head ever since. ‘We’re still out of lettuce.’

‘Did you expect some to materialise if you simply waited long enough?’ His voice had taken on a decidedly amused tone, and it rather irritated John.

‘Fine, I’ll go buy some, then!’ John, exasperated, threw his hands in the air.

‘Make sure to do it soon.’

John gave up on him and made his sandwich, sans lettuce, then wandered into the sitting room with it. Sherlock was staring at the wall, right at the spot where there was a smiley face drawn in yellow spray paint and traced over in bullet holes. In other words, he was in exactly the same position he’d been in all day. ‘You’re going to have to get out of that armchair eventually,’ John said as he sat down.

‘Why? I’ve got nowhere to be.’

‘Actually, yes you have.’

‘Have I?’ He sounded mildly surprised.

‘Yes. Dr Jekyll’s wedding, remember?’

‘Ah yes.’ He didn’t sound overly thrilled about it. Sherlock had some kind of prejudice against weddings, which John suspected had something to do it requiring him to actually button his shirt all the way.

It had been a little over a month since John and Sherlock had last seen Dr Henry Jekyll. He had called them once, about two weeks ago, to let them know that the formula had indeed served his purpose and that Hyde was gone for good. He had been in much higher spirits than when they had left him, to John’s intense relief. Sherlock’s comment about doctors being strong people was apparently true. Henry had also invited them to his wedding to Miss Emma Carew, Sir Danvers’s daughter. Sherlock and John hadn’t spoken to Sir Danvers since the murders, but if Henry was doing this well, John had no doubt Danvers would be fine too.

The news of Hyde’s supposed death had hit the papers the morning after Lucy’s murder. The name Edward Hyde had been dropped a couple of times, and by the end of the week nearly everyone in London knew who had killed the Board of Governors of St Jude’s Hospital. The hospital itself had elected a new board, one which was much less hypocritical and much more lenient, probably more out of fear for their lives than anything else, of which Sir Danvers was still the chairman and Simon Stride was still the secretary. After not too long, though, Sherlock had been engaged in another high profile case, and news on that eclipsed the recent serial murders until it was almost as though they’d never happened.

But they had, and John knew there were a few people who would never forget them.

Soon enough, it was time to get ready for the wedding. John roused Sherlock from his near catatonic state and forced him into a suit and tie. He looked ridiculous, mostly because John wasn’t used to seeing him in anything besides his trademark trousers, dress shirt, coat, and scarf. John was just proud that he’d actually managed to get a tie on Sherlock even if he wouldn’t stop fiddling with it.

‘Quit playing with your tie,’ John instructed as they got into a cab and headed for St Anne’s Church, where the wedding was to take place.

‘It’s not a tie, it’s a noose. I feel like a man about to be hanged,’ Sherlock complained, loosening it so much John could have slipped it off over his head.

John reached over and tightened it. ‘Get used to it. You can take it off when we get home.’

Sherlock made a little sound of annoyance but stopped messing with his tie, instead tapping his fingers against his black-trousered leg.

They reached St Anne’s Church just before one, when the wedding was to begin. There was just enough time to say hello to a beaming Sir Danvers before they had to take our seats.

Henry looked happier and healthier standing up at the altar than John had ever seen him. His hair was combed, his black tuxedo neat, and his eyes sparkling with joy as Emma Carew walked down the aisle with her father. She was a pretty young woman, fair-haired and looking radiant in her white dress. The brightest smile spread across her face, and Henry’s, as he took his bride’s hand.

‘Dearly beloved,’ said the priest, who was also smiling, ‘we are gathered here in the sight of God to join this man and this woman in holy matrimony. Any man who can show any just cause that they may not lawfully be  joined together, let him now speak or else hereafter forever hold his peace.’ There was silence for a moment. John half expected someone to bring up Hyde, to say that Henry was dangerous and that it wasn’t safe for him to marry Emma, but no one did. Of course not - Hyde had been gone, as good as dead, for at least a month.

The priest looked around, just to make sure - ceremony, John supposed; it wasn’t often that anyone did have an objection - and then continued, ‘Henry John Albert Jekyll, do you take this woman, Emma Alice Margaret Carew, to be your lawfully wedded...’

At that exact moment, Henry let out a small noise of pain.

The priest cut off, a baffled look on his face, and John Utterson, in the front row, was on his feet in an instant. ‘What is it?’ he asked, his voice filled with more worry than perhaps was appropriate in the situation. A murmur rippled through the gathered congregation as everyone tried to figure out what was going on.

‘Oh, God, not now,’ Henry muttered, his voice tormented, all the joy drained from his face in an instant. ‘Oh, God, not now!’ His voice became almost a scream as he doubled over in pain. ‘Help me, please take the pain away!’ He was still holding Emma’s hand, but his grip had become less loving and more harsh, as if he was trying to alleviate his pain by holding onto her. ‘It’s...it’s killing me...’ With an effort, he straightened up and threw his head back to look to the heavens. ‘Please, God, will me to fight somehow!’ His voice was a desperate plea.

Suddenly he let go of Emma and fell to the ground. The murmur of the crowd had become a dull roar of shock. People were standing up, some trying to go to him and others backing away. ‘God, have mercy!’ he cried. Emma reached out to him and he knocked her hand aside. ‘Don’t let her see,’ he added in a broken voice, almost to himself, ‘not on our wedding day...’ His voice broke off into a scream of pain as his body contorted on the ground.

John glanced at Sherlock. The detective’s face was grim. Both men knew what was going on, and it wasn’t good. Sometime in the commotion John had gotten to his feet, and now he tried to push his way through the throng to go help Henry, but Sherlock grabbed his wrist. He was giving John a stern, silent look.

Jekyll made one last noise that was half growl, half moan, and leapt to his feet. John caught a glimpse of his face as he did so and was surprised to see he didn’t recognise it. Henry had said there was a physical change as well as a personality change when he transformed into Hyde, but John hadn’t expected it to be quite so drastic. There was none of Dr Jekyll in this shorter man’s features, which seemed somehow distorted despite having no obvious disfigurement, and there was nothing but hate in his fiery eyes as he grabbed the neck of a man near him.

‘Mr Stride,’ he said, and his voice came out as a growl. He sounded nothing like Henry. ‘I trust you are respectfully recording the order of business.’

‘In God’s name...’ Sir Danvers said, his voice awestruck and horrified. ‘Dr Jekyll--’

With one swift motion, Hyde’s hands twisted, snapping Stride’s neck with a terrible crunching sound. He threw the body on the ground in front of the altar like a grotesque sacrifice and rounded on Sir Danvers. ‘There is no Dr Jekyll!’ he said, a creepy smile spreading across his face. He bent close to Danvers and lowered his voice as he added, ‘There is only Edward Hyde.’

‘Henry -’ Despite what had just happened, Emma moved toward Hyde, touching his arm. Hyde reacted quickly, grabbing her and yanking her roughly to him. The rest of the congregation was backing away, but Utterson approached him. He had a gun drawn, though where he’d gotten it John had no idea, and he was pointing it at Hyde.

‘Mr Hyde, she has nothing to do with you,’ he ordered. ‘Let her go.’

‘No one touches Hyde,’ he replied, shaking his hostage roughly, eliciting a frightened squeak, ‘no one, or she dies before God!’

‘Emma -’ Sir Danvers reached out a hand to his daughter, and Emma went to take it, but Hyde grabbed her wrist.

‘No one,’ he growled.

Poor Emma looked terrified. At some point during the ordeal she had begun crying, and in between little hitching breaths, she said, ‘Henry...I know it is you...’ She was shaking, but she touched his face with her captive hand. ‘And you would never harm me. Never.’

For a tense moment, nothing happened. Then Hyde’s face twitched with pain and John could see his entire body go rigid. His free hand clenched and unclenched as Jekyll fought for control. Then, abruptly, he let go of Emma and staggered back several steps, well out of arm’s reach of her. Utterson was still aiming the gun at him. For a moment, Henry surveyed the damage that Hyde had done until finally his gaze came to rest on his friend.

‘Do it, John,’ he begged in a tormented voice. ‘For God’s sake, set me free.’ Utterson didn’t move. ‘Set us all free!’

Utterson’s hand had begun to shake; bad news for his aim. ‘I cannot.’

‘We promised,’ Henry pleaded. A single tear ran down his cheek. ‘Remember?’

‘Forgive me,’ Utterson said, and steadying his hand, he fired the gun. Several women, including Emma, shrieked as the shot rang out and Henry fell to the ground.

Again John tried to shove his way through the crowd of people, and again Sherlock stopped him. John tried to shake him off, but his grip was strong. ‘Let me go!’ John demanded. ‘Let me go, damn it, I can help him!’

‘He doesn’t want your help, John,’ Sherlock replied. ‘Let him be.’

John struggled for a moment longer, then gave up. As much as he hated to admit it, Sherlock was right.

Emma ran to Henry and fell to her knees next to him. Frantically she brushed hair out of his face and pressed her hand to his cheek. ‘Emma...’ he breathed, reaching a trembling hand up to brush her face.

‘Rest now,’ Emma said, as gently as she could in spite of the tears running down her face, ‘my tormented love...’ His body went limp, his hand falling away and hitting the ground. Emma bent over his body, sobbing brokenly and stroking his hair as she whispered, ‘You are free now, you’re with me now...where you’ll always be...’

 

* * * * *

 

Eventually, someone called the police. Lestrade arrived, holding a cup of coffee and looking grim and somewhat grey of complexion. He took Sherlock and John aside once all the shocked wedding guests had been ushered out and Dr Jekyll’s body had been taken care of. ‘I thought you said Hyde was gone for good,’ Lestrade said, his voice strained.

‘We thought he was,’ John said. ‘The formula didn’t work as well as we expected it to.’ John snuck a glance at Sherlock as he said that, trying to figure out what his friend thought of the fact that he’d been wrong, but his face gave nothing away as usual.

‘Well, I suppose we don’t have to worry about it anymore.’ Lestrade sounded exhausted and more than a little relieved that this case was over with. John couldn’t really blame him, as much as he hated the outcome of the whole affair. He couldn’t get Henry’s horrified face as he realised what he had done out of his mind. ‘Fortunately, few people were close enough to Hyde at the time to hear his name, so as far as everyone else is concerned, Dr Jekyll had a nervous breakdown and attacked Mr Stride. It’ll make the papers and everyone will think it’s tragic for a few days and then something new will come up.’

He was right about that, too. Murders in London, while tragic, were not uncommon, and no one case ever made the headlines for long. By this time next week, someone else would be dead, the papers would be focusing on a new anonymous killer, and Sherlock and John would be running around London all over again. John sighed. ‘Sorry about all of this, Lestrade.’

‘Don’t apologise, you didn’t kill them,’ he said with an attempt at a smile that fell dismally flat. John fought back a sudden lump in my throat. John hadn’t known Henry long, but he had been a good man, and John had genuinely hoped this would work out for him.

John cleared my throat and said, ‘And aren’t you glad for that.’

Lestrade laughed at that. ‘Good afternoon, John. Sherlock.’

‘See you next time,’ Sherlock replied.

‘Get some sleep,’ John added. ‘You deserve it.’ Lestrade nodded at them one last time and walked off, leaving Sherlock and John alone.

‘Speaking of sleep...’ John said. ‘I could use some myself.’

Sherlock nodded. ‘So could I, actually. Oh, don’t look so shocked, I sleep quite regularly when I’m not on a case.’

He did, actually. That was one good outcome of this whole thing - life at 221B could go back to a regular schedule. Well, at least as regular as it ever got with Sherlock around. Which was about as far from regular as penguins were from Australia.

They caught a cab back. As soon as they got in, Sherlock hastily undid his tie, leaving it hanging around his neck. ‘Much better,’ he said with relief in his voice.

John actually laughed at that, then remembered what had just happened and abruptly stopped. ‘It’s too bad about what happened to Dr Jekyll,’ he said.

‘Indeed,’ Sherlock agreed, somewhat to John’s surprise. ‘He would have made an excellent partner to experiment with.’

‘Or on.’

He paused, then conceded with a little nod, ‘Or on.’

John was in a considerably better mood by the time they reached the flat. They stepped out of the cab and, just as the cabbie started to drive off, Sherlock’s phone buzzed. He looked at it with a puzzled look that quickly changed into one of delight.

‘You are not going to believe this, John,’ he said with a grin, then ran off down the sidewalk after the cab that had just left. John chased after him. He was already clambering  back into the cab by the time John caught up. ‘Come on!’ he said, tugging John’s arm and dragging the doctor in behind him.

‘Sherlock, _what_ is going on?’ John asked, trying not to fall all over him as the cab sped off.

‘Another one, John!’ He was breathless and there was a fire in his eyes that could only mean one thing.

John groaned. ‘Another murder?’

He nodded enthusiastically, and John could practically see that good night’s sleep dissolving in front of his eyes. ‘This one’s completely different!’

‘Fantastic,’ John groaned as they sped through the busy London streets toward the scene of yet another murder, both of them still wearing their best suits and Sherlock with his tie still dangling from his neck. John would never admit it to him, but secretly, he was a little bit excited too.

Life with Sherlock was _always_ fantastic.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: I think this is the only chapter where I took slight liberties with dialogue that came from the musical, since rhyming dialogue that works in a through-composed musical doesn't work so well in prose...
> 
> Thanks again for reading!
> 
> Works inspired by this one:  
> [NeuroLock](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1946856/chapters/4207614) \- posted by [Emotional_Mayhem](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Emotional_Mayhem)


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